


The Row House

by pointerbrother



Category: One Direction
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Artist Zayn, Bottom Louis, Fluff and Angst, Fresh Meat inspired, Housemates, M/M, Non-Con Elements (not sure and very light but i wanted to be on the safe side), POV Alternating, Recreational Drug Use, Smut, Swearing, Top Harry, University AU, Ziam is sideline this is not a Ziam/Larry mix fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-12-25 19:56:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 44,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12043140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pointerbrother/pseuds/pointerbrother
Summary: Going from friends to lovers is never easy. But what about when you've already crossed that line and suddenly, you have to deal with what comes after?Fresh Meat-inspired fic where a bunch of young university-students live in a row house near uni together and all have their issues to deal with.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> When I say it's Fresh Meat (tv series)-inspired, I mean that I've taken the idea of the house and the setting, but I haven't taken any of the characters from the actual series into the fic. 
> 
> also, i had this fic idea planned, but decided i wanted to challenge myself and write something from non-louis pov for once. i found out i actually quite enjoy it. 
> 
> hope you will too :)
> 
> ps. to avoid any confusion; this is mainly Larry-fic. The Ziam and other relationships are sideline like the relationships have been in my past fics. :)
> 
>  
> 
> pps. as i realised it was quite confusing, i've done it so I'll put the name in captions everytime i shift povs. If there are leaps in time (the little starts) but no new name then the pov is still the same as before. hope that helps :D

**ZAYN**

He wakes at the ring of the doorbell. He knows the door is for him because if it isn’t then it won’t be for anyone at all.

There are upsides and downsides to residing in the cellar-room. Upsides; more room. Relative sound-proofness, lest he should ever want to kill someone or, god forbid, have sex. More privacy, to a certain extent. And, well- he also likes the idea of someone finding his work in a hundred years and describing him as ' _a minimalist loner - by choice, devoted to his art, living underground to be closer to the core of the earth, which, really, when you think about it, is the core of art_ '. Something like that, anyway.

Downside to residing in the cellar-room; he’s the closest one to the front door and therefore, apparently, by default, the obligatory always-opener of said door.

The door _is_ for him, this morning. It’s an order he’d forgotten he put in a while back; a set of fourteen empty canvases. He signs for them and drags them downstairs, stashes them behind the ten empty canvases he still has left from his last order.

Oh, what a sad reminder to start the day on.

And yet, he thinks, as he studies the bright white fronts of the canvases, perhaps symbolical of something positive; a fresh start. A new school-year. A newfound singledom. A million new masterpieces, just waiting to be painted.

But first; fuel.

He finds toast in the fridge - doesn’t know who put it there, toast doesn’t need refrigeration, but it’s probably Liam, the brainless mug - and lights a blunt while he waits for it to pop. Normally, Harry would be up by now, since Harry tends to be the first one up. Today he isn’t, because of the canvases, so it’s a solitary breakfast and blunt. It’s just as well, he and Harry never have that much to talk about unless there really _is_ something to talk about. Don’t get him wrong, he loves that long-haired bastard, but they’re just both the sort of people who don’t really speak unless spoken to, especially not in the mornings, and, as you can guess, that doesn’t always make for great conversation.

No, he thinks, as his toasts pop out and he taps ashes into the sink and goes fridge-hunting for spread, he’s better off on his own.

Then, just as he’s concluded that in his head, the universe decides to send him another ring of the doorbell. He sighs. If that Law of Attraction-thing everyone in his art class is so crazed with really _is_ a proper thing then there’s been a technical glitch when it comes to him. Things never do seem to happen quite the way he expects, let alone wants, for them to.

He pads to the door, has another drag of his blunt and then opens.

It’s a girl; a little one. She can’t be a day over fourteen, wearing a tight striped sweater with so little crease to it that he's actually uncertain as to whether she’s a girl or a boy for a second. Well, her hair is long, a dull dark blonde colour and utterly uncombed, but long nonetheless. She has a wide, thin-lipped mouth, a small sharply edged face and big eyes that could be either blue, green, grey or somewhere in-between, it really isn’t distinguishable to the naked eye.

Most notably, though, she’s got one gigantic military-style duffel-bag at either side of her. “Hi,” she says, smiling so her wide mouth goes even wider, “I’m Lucy.”

“Lucy,” he grunts. It rings a bell, somewhere in the back of his mind. He has another drag of his blunt and the bell stops ringing. “'Morning.” She frowns a little, and he gets the feeling that he’s under-reacted to something. “So… what’s- eh…?” he nods at her bags.

On the way back up from the ground, his gaze rolls past his own legs. Bloody hell, he isn’t wearing any trousers. Oh, well.

“My stuff,” she says, a bit hesitantly, “this _is_ 14 Nash Street, isn't it?”

“Ehm… yeah. So?”

“Well- I’m, eh- I’m the new housemate. Who’s supposed to be moving in today. It _was_ today, wasn’t it?”

Oh. Oh, right. The replacement. “Oh,” he exclaims, throwing a hand out towards her. In his confusion, it’s the hand in which he holds his blunt. She’s a good sport about it, though, taking his little finger between two of hers and giving it a little shake before he pulls his hand back again with an awkward chuckle. “I’m Zayn,” he says, belatedly.

“Oh. Oh, right, you weren’t here the day I visited, were you?”

“Probably not. I’m pretty unreliable.” She takes it as a joke, and he supposes it is, for the time being. “Tend to change my mind, jump around a bit, bit of a Judas if ya know what I mean, haha.”

“Right. Right… so- ehm-”

Her gaze flicks over his shoulder a couple of times before he realises that he’s just standing here in nothing but his underwear, blocking the door.

“Well, right, eh- come in, come in, let me take your bag - oh _fuckin_ ' sh- did you load this with bricks or-”

“Hiiiiii,” someone sing-songs, thundering down the stairs, “Lucyyyy!”

“Niaaaall,” she exclaims, and there are definite traces of relief in her voice, but Zayn can’t quite bring himself to feel offended, because, well- he doesn’t know anyone more relieving than Niall. Just the right amount of wit, without ever being intimidating, just the right amount of confidence, without ever being arrogant, just the right amount of obliviousness, without ever being stupid, really, and, of course, just a little too high an amount of laughing. Thank fuck he’s up.

“How are ya, how are ya,” he chuckles, slinging both arms around her. He isn’t wearing trousers either. “Zayn, ‘ve you got the bags - lets go to the couches, this way - Harryyyyyy! Liaaaam! Louis!!! Get your fat arse’s downstairs, Lucy’s here!”

Niall leads Lucy into the living-room/kitchen-space and beckons for her to come sit in the 'lounge-area' - first time anyone’s _ever_ called it that.

What it is, really, is a large, square-shaped Turkish rug that Harry bought at someone’s yard-sale once, and three low-set brownish couches atop of it. There’s a telly in the corner, stood on an old wooden box that Louis _stole_ from someone’s yard once, and a massive jumble of cords and controllers and games for the Xbox in front of it. There’s a lounge-chair in the corner, the sort with a built-in footrest, that your granddad might lean back in as he puffs his pipe and prepares to tell you about the 'good old days'. Zayn isn’t sure who got it or where it comes from, but he likes it -  ironically, of course.

“Zayn, get the kettle, would ya,” Niall says, waving a hand at him.

Zayn rolls his eyes, but obliges anyway. One would think Niall might feel a little hesitant, flirting with a girl while only wearning heart-patterned boxers and with last night’s toothpaste still stuck on his chin. One _would_ , if one hadn’t lived with Niall for a year now. If one didn’t know that when Niall sees a woman he wants, it doesn’t matter if she’s Angelina Jolie or, well, someone a little more approachable, he’ll go for it with the confidence of Brad Pitt. It’s quite enviable, really, despite being hellishly annoying.

While Zayn scouts the cabinets for relatively clean mugs, Liam comes down. He’s wearing trousers. That’s also the only good thing Zayn has to say about him.

“Hiya,” he says, shaking Lucy’s hand, “Lucy, was it?”

“Yeah.” She smiles, eyes gliding over his trim torso, just for a second, “Louis, right?”

Forgettable as always. Ha.

“Liam.”

“Oh, sorry, I- I’m terrible with names,” she giggles.

He waves her off. “Don’t worry about it. All of my first year here, I thought Niall’s name was Nigel.”

He didn’t. That’s a lie and an unfunny joke and the laugh she gives at it is fake. He’s terrible. Socially awkward and terrible.

“Here,” Zayn says, dryly, as he slams Liam’s tea-mug down in front of him, hard enough that it splashes all over the place. “And here you gooo,” he sing-songs chirpily, placing Lucy’s in front of her. “And you, my love,” he adds with a grin, giving Niall his.

“Thanks, Sugar,” Niall says and slaps his arse.

Zayn bites back a groan. It isn’t that he’s got an issue with people slapping his bum; it’s just that Niall is so embarrassingly obvious when he’s trying to act the man and show off to the girl, that it’s almost a little bit pathetic.

Oh, well. Zayn’s probably just taking his irritation with Liam’s mere presence out on the innocent.

He sits down in the lounge-chair, mostly because it’s farthest from Liam, and asks “Where’s Harry and Louis?”

“Probably bummin’,” Niall grins, winking at Lucy.

She gives a nervous giggle and drops her gaze down into her tea. Poor girl.

“Ew, Niall, don’t speak like that when we’ve got female company,” Liam exclaims in a weird voice, and then he laughs because no one else did, because he’s got the worst sense of humour ever.

Zayn rolls his eyes.

Liam shoots him a look.

Zayn pretends to ignore it, turning to Lucy. “So, Lucy, are you a first or a second-year student at uni?”

She looks relieved at the normalcy of his question. “Yeah, no, I’m a second-year, but i had to move from-”

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii,” someone drawls.

It’s Harry, padding into the room. He isn’t wearing trousers.

Lucy doesn’t seem to mind. “Hiya,” she says with a little giggle as he closes two hands around one of hers and shakes it, slowly.

Zayn has to look away not to groan at the intense amount of eye contact. They’re all such a bunch of fucking cliches.

“Where’s Louis?” he asks, once Harry's finally finished drawling his name to Lucy and plopped down on the couch beside Niall. “You’ve met Louis, right?”

“Yeah yeah, he was there when I came here,” she says, “he’s the shor- I mean, the Doncaster-one right?”

“Yeah, he’s a proper Yorkshire-lad, Lou,” Liam says for no reason. Perhaps he thinks it’s funny. Casual. Cool. It isn’t.

“He’s not feeling too well,” Harry mutters, “he’s just having a kip, but you’ll meet him later.”

He gives Liam a look that no one but Zayn notices. It’s the sort of look that says ' _I know you’re oblivious as hell, but please, just for once, feel out the mood and don’t bang on about this_ '.

It seems to work because nobody asks anymore questions.

“So. Since you’ve met Zayn now, that makes all of us,” Liam announces with a fake smile, “we’ll talk practicalities later, but as for now, I’d just like to say that we’re all very happy and excited to have you as a housemate.”

Niall races his tea-mug like a pint-glass. “Hear, hear!”

“Hear,” Harry echoes lowly, lazily mimicking him.

Lucy giggles.

Niall mistakenly thinks she’s giggling at him and laughs, happily. They let him have it.

“Thank you all,” Lucy says, turning her to Liam, “I’ve been so looking forward to coming here and starting fresh. You know, at first I was a bit worried about being the only girl in the house, but I know you lads had a female housemate last year and that seemed to work out all right.” It didn’t. That’s why she isn’t here anymore. “So… I’m really happy i chose this place.”

She didn’t ' _choose_ ' this place. She had to move, probably due to boy-trouble, much too late, and therefore couldn’t get into college housing or find anywhere to stay even remotely close to her study - except for this place. This raggedy old row-house that someone once referred to, quite correctly, as ' _the failed attempt at a British version of a fraternity_ '. No, she’ll probably be out of here again by the end of the year. Maybe she’ll get back with whatever boyfriend she left and thus, the lads will be looking for yet another housemate. It’s only a matter of time.

“We’re happy you chose us, Luce,” Niall says, and then he raises his mug again, “to Luce!”

The other’s halfheartedly join in this time, just to shut him up.

After half an hour of small-talk - and practicality-talk from Liam, even though he _just_ said they weren’t doing that now - Niall decides to give Lucy a tour of the house. She protests weakly, on the count of already having been shown around the house twice before, but Niall just throws an arm around her and yells something along the lines off ' _third time no_ _harm_ '.

Zayn and Liam carry her bags up to Grace’s old room and don’t utter a single word to one another as they do.

On the way out of the room, though, Liam does mutter; “you know, you don’t have to sit and silently judge me all the time. If you want to tell me to fuck off, then just do it.”

“Fuck off,” Zayn tells him, without a moment’s hesitation.

 

*

 

**HARRY**

Someone took his toast out of the fridge and left it on the counter. They also burnt the toast black, then scraped off the black bits and used the same knife to spread butter on their toast a second later. As a result, the butter he bought yesterday is now filled with little bits of black toast.

He toasts the toast, scrapes the black bits out of the butter - what a waste - and finishes the toasties by slapping two slices of cheese on them. He makes a cup of tea, - one drop of milk, no sugar - fills a bottle with cold water, finds two Paracetamols and places everything on a tray. He grabs a few napkins, considers grabbing a Red Bull from the fridge too, but decides against it and heads upstairs.

Harry’s room is the only one on the third floor. Well, it isn’t really a third floor as much as it’s a renovated loft-space with slanted walls that, if you ask him, give a nice tipy-esque vibe. He painted the walls deep orange and put down red carpet, all by himself, and then he dragged up a king-size mattress he found at the junkyard and placed it under the little windows that overlook the garden. His mum complained, when she came to visit once, that a grown man shouldn’t sleep ' _on the floor_ ', but Harry sort of likes it; having a mattress for a bed and two old dictionaries for a nightstand. He’s sure that’s how all of the artists and musicians did it, back in the good days.

“Oi, Hazzer,” Niall calls out, just as Harry places his foot on the first creaky step of the spiral staircase to his room.

“Wha’?”

Niall waggles his brows.

“Wha’?”

“That Lucy, huh.” He waggles his brows harder.

“Wha’?”

He sighs. “Well, she’s- ya know - fit, in’she?”

“Sure.” She is. In an Ally McBeal-sort of way. “She’s very cute.”

“Do you think I should - ya know-” he makes a clicking sound with the side of his mouth and winks, “ya know…?”

“Maybe,” Harry mutters, and then turns and continues up the stairs.

Niall asks him something more after that, but he can’t be bothered to reply, so he just throws a smirk over his shoulder and hopes that counts as enough. It usually does.

Upstairs, the lights are off. It’s grey-weather outside, rain drumming on the windows and blurring the view. Harry places the tray on the dictionary-nightstand and flicks on his lamp - the antique one he found at the flea market. It has tassels.

“Lou,” he says softly.

He’s still asleep, hoodie up over his head, duvet up to his neck and face buried in the pillow.

Harry pulls the hood down gently and rakes his fingers through the back of Louis’ hair. He needs a wash. He needs something to eat.

“Louis. Lou.”

After a few taps on the cheek, Louis begins to stir and mumble. In the end, he blinks, rubs at his eyes and finally opens them.

“Hey,” Harry says, smiling down at him.

“Hey.” Louis frowns a little. He probably can’t remember how he got here. “Oh, _fuck_ ,” he groans, clutching his temples and screwing his eyes shut again, “my head is fuckin’ _killin_ ’ me.”

“Mhm.” Harry doesn’t doubt it. Can’t remember the last time he saw Louis as drunk as when he came stumbling home last night. “I made you some breakfast.” Louis sighs out through his nostrils and licks over his lips. They look a bit dry. “I have some Vaseline somewhere.”

Louis eyes shoot open. “Mate,” he exclaims, “sense the mood. _Please_.”

“No, oh god, no, I mean, I- not for- not for _that_ ,” Harry rambles. He’s got more than enough proper lube for _that_. “No, I mean for, uhm, your- nevermind,” he shakes his head and taps the tray, “have something to eat. Please.”

Louis lets Harry prop some pillows up for him and place the tray in his lap. He nips at the toasts, has a few gulps of the water and a sip of his tea before he mutters, “Haz, my jeans over there. I think I left my fags in there, please, can you…”

Repressing a sigh, Harry crawls across the carpet and finds Louis’ jeans. They need a wash. They definitely need a wash. He'll throw them in with his coloured wash later on. There’s a cigarette-pack in the left pocket, but it’s empty.

When Harry tells Louis as much, Louis asks for the jeans and re-checks it himself.

“ _Piss_ ,” he hisses, throwing the jeans away, “great. That’s just bloody brilliant, innit. Fuck.”

Harry takes his nails out from between his teeth for second to tell him; “m’not going down to buy more for you.” That’s where he draws the line. He hates this nasty habit. “You promised you’d quit over break anyway.”

“Yeah, well.”

Harry stays at the foot-end of the mattress, back to Louis, and chews on his nail for a bit longer. It sounds like Louis’ pushing the tray off of his lap again and shuffling under the covers to go back to sleep.

“Haven’t you got classes early tomorrow?” Harry can't help but ask.

“Yeah. So?”

“So, maybe, like… maybe you shouldn’t sleep all day, ‘cause - you’ll stay up all night and you’ll oversleep and you won’t go to class.”

Something gets thrown. The duvet, off of Louis.

“What are you doing?”

“Going down to me own room to sleep,” he says, and he sounds like he’s trying to be light and casual, but he tries too hard and he fails even harder.

Harry bites his lip and turns. Louis is reaching for his jeans and, since Harry can’t find the right words, he just reaches out and grabs them before Louis can. He hurls them across the room and looks back at Louis, trying to keep his gaze as firm as possible. “Don’t be a child.”

“Fuck off, don’t tell me-”

Harry puts a hand on his thigh. It’s bare and cold and clammy and soft as Harry’s fingers dig into the flesh. Louis’ lashes flutter, just a little, his nostrils flaring out, just for a second. He snaps himself out of it, and looks away - thinks he gets away with it. Thinks Harry’s too stupid to read him just because he’s often too nice to call him out on it.

And, that’s fine. He can have that, if it makes him feel powerful. That’s fine by Harry, as long as he doesn’t leave.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says. He isn’t really, but it feels like something to calm Louis down with. “I’m sorry, you should sleep. You should sleep it off, but-” he takes his hand off Louis’ thigh, nervous for a second that he might leave the second he isn’t being touched, but he doesn’t, luckily. Harry grabs the water-bottle and the Paracetamols. “Here. Take these, all right? I know you don’t like swallowing, but-” he drops his gaze as a stupid childish smile pulls on the sides of his mouth. “You know… take’em anyway.”

Louis punches him in the arm. “You are so...” he takes the pills, swallows and sticks his tongue out at Harry.

Harry rolls his eyes and picks at the side of his nose just to cover his own grin with his hand.

“The fuck do you get off callin’ me a child, huh?” Louis chuckles and ruffles his arm and pinches his cheek, “dirty little boy.”

Harry chuckles a little.

“What party where you at last night?” he asks, because the mood seems to have lightened a bit and maybe he’ll get away with it.

“Just some thing,” Louis mutters, pulling the duvet up over his face again.

Harry bites his lip over a ' _what thing_?', because he knows it’ll only result in a pissy ' _what's with the twenty questions, mum?_ '.

So, instead he pulls off his t-shirt and crawls under the duvet with Louis. He’s warm and soft and doesn’t object when Harry links an arm around him and shuffles a little bit closer. He’d like to pull Louis in, have him so tight against his own body that you couldn’t cram a pinky-finger in-between. He’d like to nuzzle into the nape of his neck, bite on his shoulder and kiss up the side of his face. He’d like to do a lot of things, a lot of the time, that he’s never quite sure whether he’s allowed to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as i realised it was quite confusing, i've done it so I'll put the name in captions everytime i shift povs. If there are leaps in time (the little stars) but no new name then the pov is still the same as before. hope that helps :D

**NIALL**

One Monday morning, Niall somehow manages to be the first one downstairs. He’s got class in a minute and nobody else does, but, speaking from experience, that doesn’t necessarily have to mean that Harry won’t be down before him anyway, doing yoga or lettuce or something else that gives you green diarrhea.

But, well, this morning he isn’t.

Tired and thirsty as hell, Niall reaches for the first drinkable thing he sees; an open can of beer. He has a swig large enough to down the entire contents in one go, swallows and _then_  realises that he isn’t drinking beer; he’s drinking vodka. Straight. His throat lights on fire, his eyes begin to water, he bends in on himself, wheezing and coughing and trying to spit it back up.

Just as he’s taken to sticking the back of an uncleaned Nutella-spoon down his throat, someone walks in.

“‘Morning.”

Niall throws the spoon to the floor and spins around at the sound of the voice. He trips himself in the process, stumbles around, drunk on vodka and her beautiful eyes, and then finally manages to get a hold of the kitchen counter and straighten himself up. “Oh. Hi. Didn’t see ya there,” he says casually.

“Hi,” she chuckles, walking around the spit-slick Nutella-spoon to open the fridge, “by the way, don’t drink from that left-over beer on the counter,” she says, taking out the milk that Harry wrote ' **HARRY** ' on with his new label-maker, “I tried to have a sip last night, but it smelled like vodka.”

“Right,” Niall rasps, “I’ll try not to.”

She fills her cereal-bowl and turns around and looks him over. “You all right, mate? You look a bit… ill.”

He composes himself and laughs. “Nah, I’m good, I’m good.” He throws in a smile. “Always good when you’re around, Luce.”

“Oh, youuuuu,” she sing-songs, pointing a finger at him, “you never get sick of it, do ya?”

“You? No, never.”

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, but smiles around her spoon all the same. He’s got her right where he wants her.

“Anyway, wanna walk me to class in a minute?” he asks, “I get a bit nervous sometimes… out there in traffic… all on my own.” He pouts.

She frown-grins. “Is that some sort of a pullin’-trick, Niall?”

“Is if you want it to be,” he waggles his brows, “isn’t if you don’t.”

She laughs and shakes her head again. “You and I are never going to happen, Niall,” she insists, but the shade of her cheeks tells him otherwise.

Soon.

 

*

 

**ZAYN**

Twenty-three blank canvases. Twenty-three blank canvases and one ruined canvas. He thought, last night, when everyone else was asleep and the rain was thundering on the little window at the top of his room, that he was feeling inspired. He thought, stupidly, that lighting up the bong and drinking seven cups of black coffee at 1am was the right thing to do. True artists sacrifice their health, their schooling, yes, even the rhythm of their sleep, for their art. True artists sacrifice _everything_ for their art.

Well. He does feel like someone who’s sacrificed everything, because the only thing he has left now, apart from twenty-three blank canvases and one ruined one, is his paint-brush and his mind.

Sadly, one of the two is broken.

 _No_ , he thinks, it’s this cellar. This dark, dripping little cellar. It’s draining his creativity.

He ventures upstairs.

In the 'lounge area', he finds Lucy, reading a book.

“Been awhile since I’ve seen anyone do that in this house,” he remarks, plopping down in the lounge-chair with a sigh, “what’s it for?”

“Oh, just pleasure.”

He’s impressed. “ _First_ time I’ve ever seen anyone do _that_ in this house.”

She chuckles and closes the book, albeit with a finger on the page still, lest they should run out of things to talk about. “What’s the matter?” she asks him, “you seem a bit restless.”

“I am,” he sighs, “artists block.”

She laughs. “Oh, like writer’s block. That’s funny.”

“Thanks,” he says, because if she’s that much of an easy crowd she probably won’t call him out for taking credit for the ‘joke’ either.

“So, you’re an artist, huh? That’s cool. Are you doing anything right now? - oh no, that’s right, you said you had a block. Right. Well… that’s shitty.”

“Yeah.” He slouches together in his seat. “It’s really shitty. Especially because I’ve been- no, you don’t want to hear about my shit.”

“I do!” she exclaims, “if I were really that interested in reading, I’d be sat up in my room. I was just waiting for someone to come and chat to me. Yes, I'm _that_ much of a saddo.”

He laughs. “All right, all right. Well- I mean, it’s- it’s shit because I was accepted into this art seminar last year. For particularly promising new talents.”

“Wow. Congratulations.”

“Yeah, well-” he waves her off, because there’s more; “but the reason I was accepted - by the skin of my teeth - was that I felt particularly inspired all of last year. Well, most of it. And now, suddenly, I’ve got no passion. I’ve got no pain, no longing, no nothing to paint from. Ya know what I mean?”

Her eyes narrow a little. She doesn’t know what he means. “Yeah,” she says, just to be polite. “Well, ehm- were you doing anything in particular differently? Last year? I mean, I know personally, that if I don’t exercise or get a proper night’s sleep I can’t concentrate at all in school.”

Oh dear. “It’s not about exercise or sleep, I can promise you,” he says, mildly irritated with her basic bitchery.

She catches it and adds, in a saccharine voice; “well, I’ve also heard that smoking too much weed can make you lazy.”

He glares at her. “I don’t think it’s that,” he says through his teeth.

She drops her gaze and grins a little.

“No, it’s not that,” he says again, looking dreamily out through the window, “I know what it is, but- I can’t do a pissin’ thing a about it, that’s the thing.”

“Why not?”

He looks back at her. “Because, Lucy, the thing that inspired me was my muse.”

“Your muse?”

“Yes. The person that made me feel- all of these explosive emotions, made me wrench them from my soul and onto the canvas. I wasn’t even painting, I was merely following the strokes of my heart, letting it show all the pain and the ecstasy and the sexual tension and release and the-” he catches a glimpse of her expression behind his wild-gesturing hands and stifles himself, “- well, anyway, I had a muse. I don’t anymore.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” she says, warily, “who was your muse?”

“Guys, I think I might’ve clogged the downstairs loo, but don’t worry, I’ve got my gloves on and I’ll dig as deep as I have to,” Liam says, marching through the room with a pair of pink rubber gloves on.

“It was no one,” Zayn says, contempt purposely clear in his voice, “just an absolute fuckin’ nobody.”

 

*

 

**HARRY**

It was one of those nights again last night. One of those nights where Harry spent all evening trying to do some reading for school or watch a movie or listen to some music, but failed, miserably, at all of it, because he had no fucking idea where Louis was.

It isn’t that he needs Louis to report to him whenever he comes and goes. It isn’t that he needs for Louis to tell him exactly where and with whom he parties every time he parties. It’s just that, well - it’d be nice if Louis did it anyway. Just once in awhile, just a little text here and there. Even if just a ' _hey_ ' or a ' _I’m good_ '. Just, basically, any sort of indication that he isn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Would be nice, anyway.

Somewhere in the AM’s, Louis came up here. Well, Harry woke at a loud crash and found Louis at the bottom of the stairway, having fallen five steps down. He woke Niall too, because he knocked his head into his door and Harry had to spend five minutes apologising for interrupting his beauty-sleep with the wild fucking and insist, for ages, that they’d keep it down from then on.

He couldn’t even tell Louis off for any of it, even as he was pretty fucking pissed, because, well- Louis was pretty fucking pissed too. So pissed, in fact, that Harry had to drag him up the stairs, carry him to bed, undress his near-limp body and then go all the way downstairs to find him a bucket.

Of course, when he came back up with it, Louis had already puked all over his bed-sheets.

Harry had to roll him off, about which he had the drunken nerve to complain, and change the sheets and then lie awake for an hour, just making sure Louis wasn’t puking anywhere else but into the bucket.

Now, he’s lying here again, with the mild morning light streaming in through the window behind him and his arms full of Louis, staring at the ceiling.

“My head kills,” Louis groans, stirring at his chest.

Harry resists the natural urge to ask if he needs some water or some pills or a massage. He doesn’t deserve it. He isn’t ill. He does this to himself, every time. Does this to Harry, no apologies, no remorse, no sign of any sort of fucking respect even. “Hm.”

“Fuck,” Louis mutters, shifting around a little, “christ, my arm hurts like hell, it’s-”

He pushes off of Harry’s chest to pull down the sleeve of the sweater Harry put him in last night when he’d puked on his own shirt. He looks cute in it, small and tousle-haired and that three-day scruff, dark circles under the eyes-sort of sexy that makes Harry’s morning wood go from sixty to a hundred in a second.

“Fuck,” he mutters, shoving the back of his arm into Harry's face. There’s a deep dark bruise up the length of it. “How the fuck did that even…”

“When you fell,” Harry says tonelessly. He knows Louis doesn’t remember. Louis never remembers how he got up here. Why he always insists on coming up here instead of going to his own room. Harry doesn’t ask because Louis won’t give him the answer he wants - not because he doesn’t have it, probably, but rather because he’s too fucking proud to ever say it.

“I fell?”

“Down the stairs. My stairs, last night. When you came home so fuckin’ pissed you couldn’t stand on your feet and woke both Niall and I.”

There’s a twitch in Louis’ jaw, a slight flinch in his expression and then a drop of his gaze, all of which makes Harry’s stomach twist with guilt. He can’t help it; he never wants to be the one to make Louis feel embarrassed with his own behavior, even if he really should be.

He pushes up to sit and cups Louis’ face, pressing his thumbs into his temples. Louis’ eyes flutter closed, a soft sigh falling from his nostrils and his shoulders dropping. Harry knows how to make his head-ache go away; knows exactly where it sits, at his temples and his sinuses, behind the juncture of his jaw and behind his ears, sometimes, if it’s bad. Knows exactly how hard to press and how to make Louis’ features go soft and his lips part, just a little.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, lowly, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“S’okay,” Louis half-whispers. His fingertips stretch out, catch on the fabric of Harry’s t-shirt and curl around it, playing idly.

He doesn’t say he’s sorry too, though. The words don’t leave his lips, even though Harry knows, just by knowing him, that it’s all that goes through his head when he wakes the morning after. The guilt, the humiliation, the instinctual need to apologise and the deep-rooted force of habit that makes him feel weak for even considering it.

For now, it’s all right, though. It’s all right, because Harry knows that he _is_. He _is_ sorry, somewhere behind the pride and the thundering head-ache.

“We should go for a walk,” Harry says, after a while. The near-constant raining outside his window seems to have gone on a coffee-break and Harry thinks Louis could do with going outside. Breathing something that isn’t smoke into his lunges, for once. “I’ll make you something to eat and get you some pills and then we can go for a little walk.”

“No, I-” he shrugs out of Harry’s hands and rubs at his eyes, “I’ve got class.”

“It’s Sunday, Louis.”

“No, it’s - isn’t it Monday, I thought-” he lifts his gaze and meets Harry’s, then realises he’s wrong and feels embarrassed because they both know why he sometimes can’t tell the days apart. He drops his chin again. “Anyway, I’ll make myself something, it’s fine.”

But that won’t work. Louis hasn’t bought groceries for himself in a while. All he seems to consume are energy drinks, cigarettes and booze. If he goes downstairs, even if it is with the intent of eating something proper, he’ll realise he hasn’t got any food of his own and he’ll be too proud to take any of Harry’s, even though Harry’s told him a million times that he can have anything he wants of his. He’ll go to the shops without telling anyone, determined to buy himself something of substance, maybe some bread and milk, but then he’ll get down there, count his pennies and decide he’d better get a pack of cigarettes and a Red Bull instead.

So, no. Louis won’t go down and make himself something.

“Lay down,” Harry says, firmly, and pats the mattress, “lay down or I’ll nail you down.”

Louis chuckles a little, and obliges. He lifts his hands and pins them to the mattress above his head, waggling his brows. “What now, then?”

“Now,” Harry says, taking his wrists gently and laying them down on his stomach, “now, you’ll stay right here while I go down and make you something to eat. - _and_ ,” he adds, just to be sure Louis does stay put, “if I don’t find you up here when I come back, I’ll hunt you down and kidnap you back.”

Louis grins and rolls his eyes and punches at him, weakly. “Go, then, you pisshead,” he says, “- and get my fags on the way back up.”

“Yeah,” he sighs.

 

*

 

Someone’s drunk all of his milk, even though he put his name on it in huge fat caps. It seems no one respects a label-maker anymore. He doesn’t like making scrambled eggs without milk so he opts for fried ones instead. He steals some toast from Niall because Niall probably steals toast from him too, and butter from Zayn because Harry knows, he just _knows_ , deep in his heart, that Zayn is the fucker who keeps putting burnt crumbs in Harry’s butter.

He resists the petty urge to burn an extra slice of toast just for the sole purpose of drizzling the crumbs down into Zayn’s butter, and slaps the fried eggs onto the toasts. He scans the fridge for any sort of vegetables. He finds a tomato. He slices it up and arranges it nicely on the side of the fried eggs and then asks Lucy and Niall what they think on his way through the lounge area.

“Ace,” Niall says.

“That looks so good, is that for Louis?”

“Yeah.”

“Spoiled brat, he woke me from the fuckin’ dream of a lifetime last night.”

“What were you dreaming about?” Lucy asks.

“You.”

She groans, but smiles a little too. Harry grins and rolls his eyes. Kids.

He finds Louis where he’s supposed to be when he comes upstairs, thank fuck. They eat in silence, wrapped up in duvets and window-watching the garden. The rain has returned from it’s coffee-break, but it’s a little more lazy about it than before, not as aggressive. Fine weather for a walk. Excellent weather, going by English standards.

It takes a bit of persuasion and flirtation, but eventually, Harry manages to get Louis into a pair of wellies and a waterproof bomber jacket. They don’t talk as they head through the quiet residential neighborhood they live in, aimlessly following the pavement. Louis makes a game out of only stepping down where an old piece of flattened-out gum is placed and Harry entertains himself by watching him hop about.

They reach a playground at some point, empty and soaking wet everywhere.

Harry sits on a swing while Louis fucks around on the roundabout until he inevitably spins too fast, swings off and gets himself drenched in mud all the way up to his face.

“Idiot,” Harry grins.

“What, I look cool this way,” Louis says, plopping down on the free swing beside him. There’s mud in the crook of his mouth. “It’s a fashion statement.”

“What, a statement _against_ all fashion?”

He rolls his eyes, but the non-mud covered side of his mouth twitches in a way that tells Harry he’d be laughing if he weren’t biting it back.

Without thinking, Harry tilts in and wipes the side of Louis’ face down. Louis turns into him, their faces awfully close suddenly. “What are you doing?” he asks, lowly, and looks up at Harry through his lashes.

And- that’s _got_ to mean ‘kiss me’. He’s _got_ to be asking for it, looking at Harry like that. He can’t be reading it wrong this time, he fucking  _can’t_. He leans in for the kiss. Louis turns away.

Harry sighs, loudly, his shoulders dropping, along with his heart.

Louis sets off on the ground, swinging higher and higher, faster and faster.

Harry stays static, feet on the ground and frost-stiff hands around the wet metal of the swing-chains. “I missed you, you know,” he blurts, because he’s irritated suddenly, irritated enough that he forgets to be nice and wait for Louis to take charge of things, “during the break.”

Louis swings higher than he has any of the other times and then jumps, far, and lands on his feet, perfectly. He turns, slaps a bit of wetness off of his hands and then sticks them in his pockets. “Wha’?”

“I missed you,” Harry repeats, because ‘in for a penny’, “I missed you. A lot. When we were home on break.”

Louis drops his gaze. “Yeah,” he mutters, and it sounds an awful lot like ' _me too_ '.

“And,” Harry swallows thickly, “and you didn’t call me. Not once. You didn’t even answer any of my texts,” he says, “and then, like- when we came back you were treating me like nothing had- like we were just what we’d always been. But then you get drunk and you come up to my room to sleep and we do stuff that- stuff that friends wouldn’t do. Stuff that you and I didn’t do when we were just friends. But then you won’t let me kiss you and I don’t get what you want. I don’t get what you want.”

Louis pushes his jaw out, mouth a thin line. He watches his own shoe for a bit, pushing wet dirt around in the ground, and then he mutters; “I’m cold. Let’s go back.”

Right. “Right, ehm - yeah. Okay.”

They walk home in silence again. This time it isn't nearly as comfortable as before; Louis doesn't make a game out of nothing and Harry isn't entertained by anything other than his own worries. It almost feels like a relief when, halfway home, it starts pouring down so bad that Harry can’t even hear his own thoughts.

 

*

 

“Bloody ‘ell, guys!” Niall exclaims when they make it home, soaked through to their boxers.

“So… fuckin’... wet…” Harry manages around his clattering teeth.

Niall, Liam and Lucy take to helping Harry and Louis out of their heavy-drenched clothing.

“Oi! Easy now, fella,” Louis says when Niall tries to go for his boxers as well.

Harry can’t help a laugh. “I mean, at least buy him dinner first, eh?”

Louis meets his gaze and grins. “Yeah, Neil, you fuckin’ dog.”

Niall laughs.

They pull themselves up the stairs by the railing and part ways without a word. Harry makes it up to his room feeling… confused. And hungry. He takes a warm shower, puts on some sweats and heads downstairs to cook himself something. He’s got a few pieces of frozen chicken left in the freezer and some pasta in his cabinet. There’s a jar of pesto in the back there too, not so out of date that he’ll die from it, and a few olive’s in the fridge to whom he has no idea belongs, but he takes them anyway.

As he’s frying the chicken and stirring the pasta, Louis comes padding into the kitchen. “Oh. Hey.” It’s clear in his voice that he wasn’t expecting for anyone to be in here. Well, at least not Harry, of all people.

“Hey,” Harry mutters back, eyes pointedly pinned to the pot.

“That smells good,” Louis says.

Harry knows it’s only meant conversationally, like ' _dreadful weather outside_ ' or ' _nice and cosy in here, eh?_ ', but he still can’t stop himself from automatically replying with; “you want some?”

It isn't that he feels he somehow owes Louis something - if anything it's the other way round and he knows that full well. It isn’t that he's trying to extort something from Louis either, like ' _if I give you food now then you might give me kisses later_ ' - although that would be nice. It isn't even that Harry's just a generally nice guy - of course he’d like to think he is, but in this particular case that’s not what it’s about. What's it about, really, is just that, well… he isn’t sure that Louis' going to eat anything proper otherwise. Harry doesn’t like the idea of him drinking that one Red Bull he’s got left in the fridge and then going to bed on an empty stomach and with heart palpitations.

“I’ve made enough that you can have some,” he insists.

“Oh no, I wasn’t trying to make you-”

“You’ll have some. It’s fine, Lou.”

There’s a silence behind him. He wills himself not to ask or turn. Finally, Louis breaks it with a sigh. He jumps off the counter and pokes Harry in the small of the back once, and then once again. “Haz,” he says, “Haz, turn, Haz, turn, Haz-”

Harry gives in and turns. “M’just stirring the pasta, Lou-eh-”

“Oh yeah, it’s very important, that,” Louis grins, and then steps closer, close enough for Harry to wrap his arms around his waist.

He doesn’t do it, though. He waits for Louis to do it first. Then, he allows himself to reach up and cup Louis’ face, and Louis tilts his head back and closes his eyes and Harry steps one foot in between both of his. “I wanna kiss you,” he says, because he’s tired of being rejected, “will you let me?”

“Yes, fuck, come on, just-”

Harry dips down and kisses him then.

Kissing Louis is what kissing Louis always is; absolutely fucking addictive. The smell of him, the taste of him, the way he always makes Harry fight to get his tongue in, just a little. The way he lets Harry feel like he’s steering, like he’s dominating it, even though he isn’t really in control of shit and they both know it. The way he always grins into the kiss when Harry gets greedy and slips his hands down and grabs his arse. The way it seems the more Louis lets him have, the more he wants.

If it were up to Harry, they’d be kissing all day long. If it were up to Harry, they’d be doing a lot of things all day long.

But, none of it’s up to Harry. Not really.

“Stop. Stop, stop,” Louis gasps, pulling out of the kiss and slapping at his chest when Harry tries to lift him up on the counter, “stop, Haz, the pasta-”

“Fuck the pasta.”

“It’s boiling over. _Harry_ -”

Harry gives in with an exasperated sigh, turns and yes, yes, in fact, the pasta is boiling over. Great. Nice. Good.

He pushes the pot to another burner and adjusts his dick in his trousers. “Well, then, uhm,” he mutters. The chicken’s just on the wrong side of too crisp now too, “if you don’t wanna get fucked on the kitchen-counter, then make yourself otherwise useful and go and set the table.”

Louis laughs and grabs two plates and smacks his bum. “Love you.”

“Yeah, my boner doesn’t care what you feel. It’s not what you _say_ , it’s what you _do_ , Lou-eh...”

Louis laughs and makes to leave. Harry catches him by the wrist and pulls him back in. “Love you too,” he says, before he kisses him again.


	3. Chapter 3

**ZAYN**

“So. Zayn,” his art teacher, Miss Bourne - big-boned, blonde-eyebrowed and blue-haired, somewhere in her fifties and single, by choice - says, folding her jewelry-clad hands together on her desk one afternoon, “how are you?” she looks into his eyes, intensely, in the way that a school counselor might do if they were ' _having a little chat_ ' with a kid who’d just downed an entire bottle of Aspirins and then puked it all up and had to awkwardly come back to school again the following day, “really?”

“I’m good,” he says, but he knows she knows he isn’t. Or rather, that he is - he _is_ good. Mediocre. Fine. It shows in his paintings, the complete and utter numbness of his inner world. His last piece looked as though he’d been asked to paint the feelings of a person who’d been on antidepressants for three years. “I’m good.”

“Zayn,” she sighs, “how do I put this…” she taps her long, multi-coloured nails together, “you are not the man I met last year- no, you are not the _artist_ I met last year. This work- this work you put in, it’s- it’s- lukewarm. It’s lukewarm, that’s the only way I can describe it. I don’t want lukewarm, Zayn. Lukewarm is not art, lukewarm is marrying someone who’s just quite all right. Lukewarm is vanilla sex and compromises, dirty blonde hair and eggs without salt. It’s no good. It’s not art,” she laments, “where is your passion? Your fire? Where has it gone?”

“I don’t know,” he lies, “I mean, I know what you’re tellin’ me, but I don’t know what has happened.”

“Oh dear, it’s worse than I thought,” she sighs, “well, then. You must go looking for it. Retrace your steps and find what makes you anxious. What makes you scared and sad and horny and all of which makes you feel alive. Do you have a sexual fetish? Or maybe a potential muse? Or a repressed childhood trauma, those are always good for something.”

“I don’t know.”

She buries into her hands. “Go,” she says, “just _go_ , I cannot deal, this is-”

“But-”

“No! You go, now. Go! And do not come back to me until you’ve re-found your passion. I cannot stand this lukewarmity! I feel as though I am being immersed in a not half-baked cake!”

 

 

*

 

He roams the streets for a while before he goes home, hoping to be inspired. He ends up buying a soda. A lukewarm soda.

When he reaches home, he puts the half-drunken soda in the fridge and trots down into his cave.

“- What the _fuck_?!”

Liam pulls his head out from under Zayn’s bed, eyes wide with shock. “Why are you home already?!”

“I was sent home from art class and- no, no, why are _you_ in my room? What the fuck are you doing?!”

Liam shakes his head, pushes off the floor and slaps dust off of his shirt and trousers. “Look,” he says, pointing two open hands at Zayn as though he’s trying to calm a hysterical madman, “I know you said you didn’t take my headphones, but I just _know_ you did and you’ve forgotten it. And- and you wouldn’t let me have a look so I had to just go and see for myself. Okay? That’s all. Okay?”

Zayn closes his arms over his chest, giving him a once-over. He looks sincere enough. Stupid. But sincere. “All right, well, did you find them?”

“No,” he says, “- but, but, I know they’re in here somewhere, you’ve just got to give me-”

“Forget it. Piss off, Liam. I’m in enough of a mood as it is, I don’t need to watch your stingy arse turn my room upside down over a pair of five-pound headphones.”

Liam groans. “You are- you are so _fuckin_ ’ annoying, you know that?! I don’t deserve this, this _explosive_ fucking resentment, it’s ridiculous, Zayn. We were two people in it, you were just as bad as me.”

“Pardon me? What did you _just_ say? I was- that’s- _you fucked someone else in our bed_!”

“Yeah, after you’d _just_ told me you’d fucked someone else the day before!”

“It was a figure of speech, Liam, grow a fucking brain!”

“How is ' _I fucked Jimmy in our bed last night_ ' a figure of speech?! How?! How, please, _please_ elaborate so my pea-size fuckin’ brain can-”

And suddenly, they’re kissing.

Zayn isn’t sure who went in first or what the hell is happening, but there’s a beast inside of him, white-hot rage sizzling in his chest, and he couldn’t stop himself if he tried. He isn’t kissing Liam, he’s eating his face, fucking _devouring_ him. He isn’t taking Liam’s clothes off, he’s ripping them, throwing them, digging his nails into his skin and biting him so hard he curses and stuffs four fingers into Zayn’s mouth.

They don’t fuck, they fucking _jack-hammer_. The headboard bangs against the wall, trinkets toppling off the shelves, the feet of the bed rubbing deep marks into the floor. They fall off the bed, continue up against the wall and finish on the floor.

Afterwards, Liam leaves. Doesn’t once mention the headphones again. And Zayn; Zayn paints. For the first time in forever, Zayn _really_ paints.

 

*

 

**HARRY**

“' _... and he never ate vegan again_ '. The end.”

Harry puts the paper back on his nightstand and reaches for his tea. Tonight is one of those rare nights that he gets to have Louis all to himself; his undivided, un-boozified attention. He came up to Harry's room around an hour ago and slouched out at the foot-end of his bed. Harry fetched tea and biscuits for them, rested his feet on the soft squishy pillow that is Louis’ bum and read him his latest English lit essay.

And- as much as he doesn’t want to be that guy, as much as he _isn’t_ that guy, most of the time, it was a part of a bigger plan. A scheme, if you will. He knew reading up the essay would take approximately fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes within which Louis would become spellbound by the low, seductive hum of his voice, become so immersed in the moment that he might want to stop thinking, want to stop fidgeting restlessly, stop joking around and slapping and shoving whenever Harry comes a bit too close for comfort.

Basically, stop saying no to sex all the time.

“S’good,” Louis murmurs, in the half-drawling, half-gaspy way that a person does when they’ve just dozed off for two seconds and re-woken, “s’good… good essay, love, s’yeah… brilliant...”

A strip of Louis’ sacrum shows, tan and smooth where his t-shirt’s crept up. Harry drags a toe along it, light and teasing. “- _Ergh_!” Louis’ screeches, rolling onto his stomach and shoving Harry’s feet away, “stop. Tickles.”

“I thought you liked being tickled,” Harry drawls, just to get the ball rolling.

“No,” Louis pulls his t-shirt down and rests down on his back, strong arms under his head,  “ _you_ like being tickled. Among other perversions.”

Harry reaches down to squeeze his own bulge through his trackies. “Mhm,” he half-growls.

It works, catching Louis’ attention, albeit only for a disinterested second. “Stop touching yourself,” Louis mutters, moving his gaze back to the ceiling, “sz’not very classy.”

“Says the man who got pulled off a bar-disk and thrown out of a club for stripping off just last weekend.”

“What a load of bollocks. I never did that.”

“Well, you wouldn’t remember, would you?” Harry catches Louis’ t-shirt between his toes to try and pull it up a bit again. Louis chuckles at it, but whacks his foot away again, pulling the shirt back down. “Cause you were pissed out of your head,” Harry drawls on.

Louis flips him off, grunts and closes his eyes.

Harry slips a hand down his own trackies, getting a hold of himself. It’s a relief, but it’s no way near as good as it would be if it were Louis’ hand. Or his mouth. His arse. Fuck, he’s so sick of jerking off. “Get up here.” He kicks at Louis’ flank. “Get up here already.”

Louis opens half an eye to glance at him. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Harry,” he groans, but he isn’t really all that bothered. Harry wanked in front of him before they even knew they wanted to wank each other, too. “You’re unbelievable.”

“You too. So fuckin’ sexy. Turn around and let me see that arse again, would you?”

Louis just groans.

His gaze isn’t moving away though, and there’s that glint in them, the one that makes Harry want to pull his cock out and make a show of it. He’s licking his lips, over and over, like he wants to touch. _Taste_ , maybe, if Harry plays his cards right. “Get up here,” he repeats, “get the fuck up here, Lou-eh.”

Louis twitches, like his instincts tell him to oblige, but then stops, like forcing himself.

Well. “All right, I’ll come to you,” Harry sighs, pulling his hand out of his pants and crawling toward him.

Immediately, Louis jerks backwards, so fast he almost tips off the mattress. “Stop,” he exclaims, kicking out at Harry, “seriously, I’m not in the mood for-”

“Oh shut up, you’re so fuckin’ hard it’s ridiculous.”

Louis shifts onto his stomach, but that’s just as well because Harry fits nicely around him from behind too, hard bulge pressing into the crevice of his plump arse.

“Come oon,” Harry takes a hold of his hip, gently, pulling his arse back against his own crotch to grind into him better, “you used to love it like this,” he tries, lips brushing over the faint hairs on the nape of Louis’ neck and raising them, “slow and deep into the mattress, yeah? You’ll love it again, once we get started, Lou.”

Louis presses his face into the mattress, but forces a hand in-between Harry’s hips and his own arse the same time, trying to push him off, “no, seriously, can you back up a little, its’-”

“Or I can suck you off if you want,” Harry resorts to, grabbing Louis’ wrist and forcing his hand away again, “you don’t have to do anything back, I’ll- let you fuck my face, if you- Lou, just turn and let me kiss you-”

“- _seriously_!” Louis shouts, suddenly, elbowing Harry in the stomach, so hard and well-placed that he topples backward with a loud groan, “seriously,-” Louis slides himself backwards off of the mattress and fixes his clothes. “Fuckin’ hell, mate,” he hisses, “‘ve you got no construct of what the word ‘no’ means?”

“Concept,” Harry says without thinking, “no _concept_ of what the word ‘no’ means. Concept. Not construct.”

Louis throws his hands out exasperatedly. “Concept, construct, whatever the fuck, I don’t- s’yeah, I’m gonna- I don’t- I’m going to bed.”

Oh fuckery. “Fuck’s sake, don’t be like that, don't just leave over nothing!” Harry yells, but his frustration makes him hurl a pillow at Louis, which probably doesn’t help his case. “No, I- sorry, come back. Come back, please.”

Louis flips him off over the shoulder and disappears down the stairs.

“ _Fuck_ -” Harry hisses, throwing himself back on the bed and punching the mattress, “fuckin’ _child_!” 

He lies there, stiff and tense and frustrated in every possible way, for a little while. He considers, a fleeting insane thought, running down and cramming Louis into a corner. That sort of thing used to work, once in a while. He used to get off on that, having Harry force himself on him. But, no. That only works if he isn’t _actually_ angry.

So, like he’s done so many nights this past while, Harry gets up, goes to his bathroom and wanks into furiously into the sink.

Afterwards, he looks up, right into the mirror, and tells the long-haired whipped fucking fool in there “this is the last time you initiate. The _last_ time”, for the third time this week. 


	4. Chapter 4

**HARRY**

“All right, lads,” Niall says, having just gathered all of the housemates in the lounge area. Well, all of the _male_ housemates anyway.

Harry was in the middle of a good book, but the he didn’t really mind being interrupted because, well, the book was shit and he wasn’t really reading it anyway. He was deep in his own head, eyes rolling over blurred-out words as his mind raced with worries, as his stomach felt knotted up with anxiety, his toes buzzed to get up and run downstairs to where he’d just heard Louis arrive home from class. He was trying to be strong, was the thing. Trying to not be the first one to break.

So, Niall calling all of the lads down was actually a bit of a blessing.

Louis sits on the couch across from the one Harry and Liam are slouched in. He’s in the corner of it, knees pulled up under his chin, arms his legs and a slightly glazed-over look in his eyes. He looks lovely. He always does. Harry wants to switch seats, press himself up against him and wrap his arms around him, push his cold hands up Louis’ sweater and flatten them out on his warm stomach to make him screech. Mostly, he just wants to be close with him.

He stays put, for now.

“As you can see, the lady of the manor is out,” Niall continues, “and there’s a reason I’ve decided to have this housemate-meeting exactly now.”

“She rejected you and now you want her kicked out?” Louis asks.

Harry chuckles.

Niall laughs. “Oh, I _wish_ ,” he says, which doesn’t really make any sense, but no one comments on it and Niall goes on; “I’ve decided we’re having a party. Tonight. In honour of Lucy moving in. Introduce her to all of our mates and really make her feel at home, ya know?”

That’s sweet. Not quite realistic, though. “But, like, how are we gonna put a party together in one day? People have lives of their own, you know.”

“Yes, I know that, Harold,” Niall says, giving Harry’s hair such a violent ruffle that he has to spend ages putting it back in it’s place, “which is why I’ve already invited people. Feel free to invite people I don’t know, but I doubt any of you lot have friends outside of my circle, I mean, come on, look at you. - Anyway,” he slaps his hands together, “that’s it, then. Bit of a surprise for Lucy. Yeah.”

“Mate, you could’ve warned us in better time, how are we gonna make this place look even remotely presentable in time for tonight?” Liam moans.

Zayn groans and Harry might be doing the same if he weren’t sitting within pinching-range of Liam.

“Well,” Niall says, “ehm- I’ll delegate some quick orders and then things should work out all right. Liam, Louis, you two clean up. Harry, you go make those little cinnamon cake-thingy’s for people to snack on tonight. Zayn, go take a shower, you look like you’ve been fisting a woman on her period.”

“It’s called _art_ , Niall.”

“Whatever.” Niall claps his hands together again and makes a beeline for the door. “Meanwhile, I’m going out to buy a shit-load of booze.”

“Yay!”

Harry escapes to his room to find his wallet and jumps out of the door before Liam and Louis get into one of their usual left-to-do-a-task-alone-together-rows. He pops down to the corner-shop, finds the missing ingredients and sneaks back in through the kitchen door, so as not to ‘disturb’ the cleaning.

He still does, though, because he walks in on Louis at the sink wearing a pair of pink rubber gloves. “Oh. Hey.”

“Heey,” Louis says, throwing a drowsy grin over his shoulder.

“Reckon it’s the first time I’ve ever seen you do the dishes,” Harry mutters. It’s not entirely true, but it makes Louis chuckle and splash water at him, so he thinks it does it’s job in a different way. “M’gonna make the cinnamon thingy’s you like,” he tells Louis as he unloads his grocery bag, “I’ll let you lick the bowl if you want.”

“Sounds kinky.”

“It is.”

The room goes a bit quiet after that, safe for the manic sounds of Louis scrubbing plates like he’s being timed, and Harry opening and closing cabinets, trying to find his favourite mixing bowl. Eventually, he’s got all of his tools and ingredients lined up in front of him and the room is still quiet.

He glances over at Louis. He’s pulled off the gloves now, moved on to the cloth instead, which makes everything even quieter.

“We’re all right, right?” Harry blurts. “We’re all right, right? You and I, we all right… right?”

Louis gives him a weird look. “Wha’?”

“No, but, it was- just, like, the other day you were…” Oh god, “we haven’t really… spoken since.”

It’s a lie and he knows it. They’ve chatted, they’ve bantered, they’ve thrown witty remarks over the kitchen island every morning. What he really meant to say, what he really _would’ve_ said, if he had the fucking balls to do so, was; ' _we haven’t kissed since. We haven’t kissed, not once, since I tried to hump you from behind and you ran out of the room like your arse was on fire_ '.

He didn’t though, and that’s why Louis gets away with replying; “yes we have, what kind of rubbish is that? We talk all the time.”

“Right, no… yeah, I- but we are, right?” he latches back onto, “we are all right, right?”

A faint crease forms between Louis’ brows. “Riight,” he says, the side of his mouth quirking up a little.

“Right. Good. Good.” Harry nods and turns back to his baking. “Good, that’s- good, ‘cause, like- yeah. Good. Now, what was I...”

Louis pinches his bum. “You’re so cute,” he chuckles, “when you get yourszelf all flustered and that…”

“Not flustered,” Harry mutters, childishly on purpose, “you ain’t got that power over me.”

Louis lifts both palms up in defense. “All right, all right, whatever you say.”

He looks so cute like that, frowning and grinning and with that fuzzy look he has in his eyes sometimes, that Harry can’t help himself; “can I have a kiss?”  

Louis drops his arms down. “Wha’?”

“Just a little kiss, we haven’t- just a little kiss, you know. We haven’t kissed since… the other day. Just a little kiss,” he lifts two fingers up to show Louis just how little it’d be, “teeny tiny one.”

Louis chuckles. “Yeah, you can have one,” he says, but then grabs the cloth off of where he’d slung it over his shoulder and turns back to the wet dishes, “later on, when I’ve got a minute.”

 

*

 

**ZAYN**

The party is, to put it most correctly, flourishing. The music is just right, the number of guests and the particular guests are just right, the abundance of alcohol, the conversationalists-to-dancers-ratio, hell, even Liam’s idiotic karaoke-system in the lounge-area, it’s all just right. Lucy seems happy too, laughing and clapping at Niall and Liam’s rendition of ' _Push The Button_ ' by the Sugababes.

They do throw the best parties.

Zayn drains his scotch-glass for cider and jumps off the dresser he was sitting on, excusing himself from conversation with a couple of shall-we-say lesser 'creatively spirited' people from his old art class, to go and get a refill. In the kitchen, he finds Louis, bum and feet up on the counter, and a big bottle of vodka between his thighs.

“Hiiiiiiii,” he sing-songs, throwing his arms out for Zayn, “babyyyy.”

Zayn chuckles dryly and whacks him off, then jumps up beside him and scouts the counter. “What do you mix with?” he yells.

Louis frowns and leans into him. “What?”

“What. Do. You. Mix. Your. Vodka. With?!” Zayn screams.

Louis frowns a little harder, then glances down at the bottle and up again, finally understanding. “Nothing!” he yells back.

“Ew!”

He shakes his head, then screws off the lid and has a straight swig to demonstrate. He winces a little, his nose scrunching up, but it isn’t too bad. Zayn supposes there are worse things to drink straight than vodka. Normally - recently, in particular - Zayn tries not to get too drunk. Doesn’t like the effect alcohol has on him; numbs his emotions and makes him talk too much. But, well, he’s been doing good lately, what with finishing his first masterpiece of the year yesterday. He deserves a night of fun.

He takes the bottle off of Louis’ hands and has a big swig. Immediately, he spits the viscous liquid out into thin air and wheezes. “Arrrgh!”

Louis bursts out laughing and snatches the bottle back before it slips from Zayn’s hands and smashes on the floor.

“Never drinking anything straight again,” Zayn rasps, “that’s absolutely disgusting. It’s like suckin’ on a fuckin’ sharpie, mate.”

“It’s ‘cause you only ever drink soda-like booze.”

“That’s not true,” Zayn says, slightly offended, “I like a good glass of scotch now and again.”

“Yeah, when you’re so high you can’t taste anything anyway.”

“Well, whatever, that can’t be good for you,” Zayn says, deciding he’d better turn this conversation onto something other than himself, “and besides, you look pretty fuckin’ pissed already. Maybe you should have a glass of water or something.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “S’a party, mate, turn your fuckin’ brain off for a moment, would ya?” he yells, “I’ll assure you, it’ll do wonders for your ‘art’.”

“Why did you just do air quotes when you said ‘art’?”

“Guys, we need a fifth man for Five Direction-karaoke, anyone up?” Liam cuts through, sauntering in like he owns the damn place.

There’s a scratch on his bicep and a bite-mark on his neck, both of which belong to Zayn. Ew. Why did he do that? “No one wants to sing your stupid gay boyband-song, Liam.”

“Hey, wha’z wrong with Five Direction now?” Louis whines from the sideline. “And being gay? Hey, you’re gay yourself, wha’z wrong with-”

“Nothing’s wrong with it, Louis, he’s just being a bore,” Liam says, glaring at Zayn, “maybe you should have some water, Zayn, you’ve clearly had too much to drink.”

Zayn leaps off the counter. “Oh, fuck off.”

“Oh yeah, go off to your little cave and hide from the world the second someone tells you something that doesn’t perfectly suit ya!” Liam screams after him, but he’s already gone so it’s pointless. Once he accepts that, he leans over the kitchen counter instead, clutching the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ,” he sighs, lifting his head to shake it at Louis, “genuinely think he’s the most aggravating person I’ve ever known in my entire life.”

“What’s that bite-mark on your neck?”

 

*

 

**NIALL**

Lucy was over the moon about the party. She jumped into his arms, whipped him with her strawberry-smelling hair and even let her lips, ever so discretely, brush his cheek. They teamed up in beer-pong and won and she let him swing her around the room until he knocked her bad ankle into a lamp. She watched his karaoke-performance and laughed and laughed until she absolutely had to get up and change her knickers cause she’d pissed herself - from laughing so hard.

Now, he’s drunk, getting his toe-nails painted by James from his class, who’s Jenny on the weekends, and feeling pretty fucking happy with himself.

Well, he’d be a little happier if he could spot Lucy anywhere in the room. Not to run after her and be a pest; he knows that isn’t how the game works. No, rather just to throw her a smile, just make sure to plant his lovely charmingly crooked teeth in her subconscious. He’s smart like that.

But, she isn’t in the main room. He cranes his neck to look over the kitchen island. She isn’t in the kitchen either. Hm.

“Jenny, I’ve gotta go see a man about a horse,” Niall announces, jumping out of the chair so fast that Jenny paints a pink streak up his foot, “no worries,” Niall says, waving him/her (he’s afraid to ask at this point) off as he heads for the door, “I’ll pull it off!”

He checks the hallway, the downstairs loo, he even pops down to Zayn’s cellar, but gets told to ' _fuck the fuck off_ ' immediately. He goes upstairs, saunters - casually - up and down the hall. He even has a look in his own room, because, well, maybe - but, no. He shouldn’t be so lucky.

Just as he’s looking at Harry’s stairway, considering crawling up there, just to see if anything’s going on, - could be Lucy and the lot were sat up there, playing a nice game of Spin The Bottle for him to join in on - he hears a noise. A thumping noise, like something being knocked up against a wall.

He stops in his tracks. Looks around himself.

 _Thump_.

It’s coming from the end of the hall, behind Harry’s stairway. It’s coming from Liam’s room.

Drunk, not massively, but drunk enough that the tiny amount of social restraint he has when he’s sober, disappears, Niall heads straight for the door. “Who’s gettin’ plowed in heeeeeere!” he yells, kicking the door open. “Oh, _shit_ -”

Someone _is_ actually getting plowed in here. Liam’s on top, humping and grunting away, as one does, and there’s a pillow in the way of the girls’ face.

Right until she realises someone’s barged in on them, screams for Liam to stop and slaps the pillow away in her panic.

Liam lifts off and looks over at the door, his eyes blowing wide. “ _Shit_ , mate, get the fuck out!”

“Lucy,” Niall says, completely ignoring Liam, “what are you doing?”

She swallows, her gaze flicking around a bit. “Ehm, well you know, just- hangin’.”

“He’s still _inside_ of you.”

“Yeah, well, ehm, ya know-”

Liam hurls a pillow at him. “Get the fuck _out_ , Niall!”

Hm.

 

*

 

**HARRY**

On his way to the stairs, around half past 3 AM, he finds Niall, passed out halfway out of the downstairs loo. He’s mumbling to himself, slurring in such a thick accent only a native Irishman could understand. Harry hauls his heavy body off the floor and attempts to get him to use his legs, but fails, miserably.

“How the hell did you get this drunk?” he groans, using all of his strength to carry Niall’s total deadweight up the stairs, “saw you an hour ago and you were fine.”

“Bleerghicuntfuckzz…”

“Okay.”

Harry manages to drag him to his room, throw him on his bed and pull off his shoes.

“M’not undressing you, that’s where i draw the line,” he tells him. Niall just rolls over with a grunt and falls to sleep. “Goodnight, then.”

He finds a plastic bottle in Niall’s backpack, fills it with water and puts it at his nightstand. Then he closes the blinds, shuts off the lights and closes the door. There’s still movement downstairs, slurry-voiced chatting and a little bit of music, but the party’s slowly dying out. It’s just as well. Some drunk girl who thought Harry was Liam told him his cinnamon-cakes tasted like a fossil made of shit - or, as she put it ' _a fuckin- fuckin, like - foszil of, like, like, fuckin’ sszhit, man. Fuckin’ pure human fuckin’ feceszz, mate, I'm tellin' ya_ ' - and after that, he wasn’t having as much fun.

He has the last of the beer he was drinking and heads up to his room.

He pulls of his shirt, shimmies out of his jeans, shuffles under his duvet and then notices the person just rounding the top of his stairs. He’s in a cobalt-blue hoodie and tight black jeans, no shoes and no socks either. He lets himself fall onto all fours and begins to crawl toward Harry, slow and waggly.

“Hey, sexy,” he says, stopping at Harry’s toes. “Got room for one more?”

Harry chuckles. “Depends. Who’d you have in mind?”

Louis dips down and bites on his big toe. Harry throws his head back, wincing and laughing. When he lifts it again, Louis is scooting up beside him on the mattress. His hoodie’s halfway over his head, pushing his fringe into his eyes and making him look- well, how he always does; so _fucking_ sexy.

Harry scoots closer. “So,” he says, slipping his hands up the feverishly hot skin under Louis’ hoodie, “how ‘bout that kiss, then?”

Louis waggles his brows. “What kiss, now?”

“The one you promised me,” he tilts his head a little, giving a soft smile, “please, baby.”

Louis beckons him closer, cutely, and then curls his fingers around the juncture of his jaw and fits their mouths together.

He tastes and smells like vodka, immediately, so bad it makes Harry’s eyes sting a little, and he kisses sloppily at first and then not at all, letting Harry get on top and do all the work. But, it’s Louis. It’s getting to pull Louis’ shirt off and feel the hot press of his naked chest against his own again. It’s getting to shimmy those much too tight jeans down his thick thighs and kiss his way back up. It’s getting to touch cocks with him again, knead at his arse and then flip him onto his stomach and put his tongue where he's the most sensitive.

“Fuck, I’ve missed you naked,” he breathes, kissing his way back up the slope of Louis’ spine and nestling his full-fattened cock between his arse-cheeks, “d’you know how long it’s been…” he smooths Louis’ sweaty fringe to the side, nuzzles into him and presses his lips to his ear, “since I’ve last been up your arse?”

“Fuckin’ ages,” Louis murmurs, but he doesn’t really remember.

Not like Harry does. He doesn’t count the days, wank to the faded memory, doesn’t go so fucking crazy with it, doesn’t have to look at that fat arse in two sizes too small-jeans every fucking day and not even be allowed to- “please let me,” he hears himself gasp, “please, I’ve- I got lube and stuff, I-”

“Yeah yeah, yes, come on, babe.”

Yes. Finally. Fucking _finally_. It’s so ridiculous, how giddy he goes, all the way to his fingertips, getting the lube, watching his fingers push past Louis’ muscle, again and again, harder, rougher, as he slicks his cock up.

Maybe for a bit too long, he realises, when he finally pushes in and it’s- “ _fuck_ ,” he hisses, bottoming out in one go, “oh _fuck_ , I-”

Louis slaps a hand back at him. “So good,” he says, words half-muffled in the pillow, “sz’good, babe, just- c’mere.”

“Yeah,” Harry breathes, voice choked, and lays himself out on Louis again, kisses the side of his mouth and begins to thrust into him, hard, “yeah, s’it good? S’it - _arh fuck_ \- s’it good, baby?”

“Mhm, yeah. Yeah, give it to me,” Louis pants, slapping a hand onto the wall above the mattress, trying to push back on Harry, “fuck me, come on, you- _arh_ , harder. Harder, you're so good, you're so big, baby-”

Louis never gets this filthy. Louis never gets this mouthy, not _during_. He gets loud, moans and groans, curses if it’s really good or much too much, but he never really uses his words like this. 

So maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s that which Harry can blame his premature ejaculation on. It’s five, maybe seven if he’s being generous with himself, seconds, and then- “fuck, I can’t- _fuck_ …” He tries to still his hips, but it’s out of his hands then, it’s already too late. He gives a loud groan as he shoots hot into Louis, rides it out by instinct and then goes limp, drained and spent and probably unbearably heavy on top of him.

A few seconds pass, just panting. Probably more seconds than it took for Harry to finish.

“Babe, can you,” Louis murmurs, slapping a hand back at him and shifting around, “pull out so I can, just..”

Harry rolls off then, dragging two palms down his sweaty face while he tries to cope with the embarrassment. Then he decides, well fuck it, and tips onto his side. “Sorry,” he gives a sheepish grin, “take it as a compliment, please. I’m gonna suck your dick now.”

Louis chuckles and Harry scoots down the mattress to do what he’s promised, but before he reaches Louis’ dick, he gets a hand fisted in his hair, yanking at him. “Stop, no, it’s not- it won't-”

The grip isn’t particularly tight so Harry makes it down anyway. Then he stops in his tracks. “Oh.”

“S’not you, sz’just, I’m too fuckin’ pissed, I can’t… - just leave it, s’fine, just… leave it.”

Right. Harry crawls back up, slowly, and lies down on his back. He chews on his nails for a bit, unsure of what to say or how to put it.

“Uhm,” he starts out with, eventually, “were you, like, uhm… soft the _entire_ time?”

“What, the entire three seconds that you rabbit-humped me?”

Right. “No, but, well, yeah, I just, mean, I- you’re not supposed to, like… why would you let me fuck you if you weren’t even hard?”

He slaps a clammy hand onto the side of Harry’s face and smiles. “You wanted it so bad. Wanted to give it to you. S’fine… s’like a blowjob. Sometimes it’s just one person getting off, that’s fine, s’okay…”

Right. But- “I don’t- feels different if it’s, like, full-on. Doesn’t it hurt when you’re not hard?”

“Well, I mean…”

At first, Harry thinks he trails off. Then he realises he cut himself off on purpose because what he was about to say was ' _I was too fucking pissed to feel anything anyway_ '. Not pissed enough not to know how fucked-up that is, then.

“Well. I’m gonna sleep now,” Louis says, “‘kay that I crash up here, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry breathes, staring at him incredulously - which, of course, he _is_ too fucking pissed to notice. If things were how he’d hoped for them to be at this point, he and Louis wouldn’t even have to ask whether it was ' _okay to crash_ ' in one another’s room. If things were how he’d really hoped for them to be, they wouldn’t even have separate rooms anymore.

But, things clearly aren’t.

“That’s fucked up,” Harry says, tipping back on his back to stare at the ceiling, “now I feel like I've just fucked a corpse or something.”

Louis gives a lazy chuckle. “Or roofied me.”

“That’s not fucking funny.”

Louis just chuckles again and rolls over and falls right asleep. Harry lies awake for a while longer.


	5. Chapter 5

**HARRY**

He wakes before Louis again this morning. They aren’t tangled up in each other like they usually would be after a night together. It seems like Harry’s been angry, even in his sleep. Now he’s awake, lying on his side with his head rested on his arm, watching Louis slowly awaken, and he’s still angry. Well, not angry in the sense that he wants to scream and throw things and not hear Louis out at all.

It’s just… he feels unfairly treated. Like having been cheated into doing something that now makes him feel like _he’s_ done something wrong. Like having thought you were fucking someone who actually _wanted_ to be fucked last night and then finding out, once it’s too late to stop yourself, that they just wanted you to stop nagging. Like feeling a little bit… hurt.

Hurt-angry.

Louis groans and rolls onto his stomach, clutching the back of his skull. “My head-”

“Kills. Yeah.”

“Fuckin’- _urgh_ ,” he kicks out at the sheets, then grabs the duvet and hauls it up to his chin. He rolls over again, onto his side, facing away from Harry, “s’that dog across the street as well,” he grumbles, “barkin’ at arse o’clock in the morning.”

“Hm.” He doesn’t know what dog Louis’ talking about, but he can’t really be bothered to engage. “D’you remember last night?” he asks instead.

Louis grunts. “What, Niall passin’ out in the loo?”

“Do you remember coming up here?” Harry asks, because he’s so tired, it’s so grey out, he’s so sick of this, over and over and over again, that he can’t even find it in himself to make a joke of it. “Do you remember coming up here last night, Louis?”

Louis winces and picks at his ear. “Don’t speak so sharply, I _just_ said I had a fuckin’ head-ache.”

“Sorry,” Harry says, by instinct, but regrets immediately after. For some inexplicable reason, he still can’t stop himself from starting his next sentence with the same it anyway; “sorry, I- I just… last night, you made me feel really uncomfortable. ‘Cause… - and maybe I’m makin’ a thing of this and I shouldn’t be, but I’m just telling you how it made me feel so I guess I can’t be wrong about that. It just… I thought we were having sex. And then I find out you haven’t even been into- fucking _any_ of it- throughout. And yes, I know I was quick about it, but still… I feels really fuckin’ shitty, Lou. When I think we’re having sex and then I find out I was just basically fucking some fuckin’... fuckin’ incapacitated person.”

He realises he’s gone off on a bit of a rant, mostly fueled by a slight fear of the silence he felt impending every time he took a second to breathe. Now that he’s finally managed to stop himself, he’s got the fear confirmed; it’s dead silent in the room. Louis lies stiff before him, his back gone rigid, and, from the sounds of things, he’s holding his breath.

“Sorry,” he finally says, on a long sigh, “sorry that- that sounds shit. Sorry.”

Harry lies still for a second, eyes narrowing a little. Louis never apologizes, never just like that, rarely ever verbally and - _no_. Right. Of course. He isn’t apologising because he’s sorry about what he did last night; he’s apologising because he can’t remember fuck-all from last night and he thinks that if he just says sorry Harry won’t go on about it and he won’t have to own up to how fucking pissed he was, yet again.

“I know you-” Harry begins, but something inside him makes his voice crack, makes him incapable of finishing the sentence he had planned; ' _I know you can’t remember shit from last night. You were too pissed, like you always are_ '. He just can’t say that, not when Louis’ shoulders go high and tense like that, not when it’s _his_ Louis, the one he knows, he just can’t say it. Not if it makes Louis feel even more embarrassed with himself than Harry can already tell he is. They’ll talk about it some other time. “I know you, uhm- like, that you have a headache, but I think we’re out of Paracetamols,” he says instead.

Louis’ shoulders un-tense, slowly. “Oh, eh- doesn’t matter. They don’t do that much for me anyway.”

“Okay.”

Harry sighs and then gives into himself and shuffles closer to fit himself around Louis from behind. Louis goes soft in his arms, unusually pliant, and even though Harry knows it’s only out of guilt and that makes it a bit bittersweet, he still enjoys it for what it is. He closes his arms around Louis and let’s Louis link their fingers together and press kisses to his knuckles. He nuzzles into the nape of Louis’ neck and up into his hair. “You can talk to me, you know,” he says, breathed softly against the back of Louis' ear, “if there’s anything, I want you to talk to me, Lou. I care about you so much it hurts sometimes.”

Louis doesn’t say anything back, but the way he sighs shakily and melts into Harry speaks for itself. It'll be enough. For the time being, it'll be more than enough.  

*

 

**NIALL**

Every time he tries to lift his head off the pillow, it feels like someone’s crouched above him, pushing it down again. There’s a water-bottle at his nightstand, his own one, but it’s full now. Harry, that angel. It can’t have been anyone else. He chugs the entire contents in one go - it _isn’t_ vodka, thank fuck - and then finds the strength to get himself out of bed. He’s still in last night’s clothes, which is also nice of Harry, because now he doesn’t have to worry about putting on new clothes. Ace.

As he slowly makes it out of his bedroom and down the stairs, the memories begin to come back. Lucy. Liam. Plowing. Ergh.

In the kitchen, he finds Zayn, with a smoke between his lips and a cup of black coffee in his hand. “Hey.”

“‘ey.” He opens the fridge, scans the contents, finds a little pudding belonging to Liam and takes it, no hesitation, “fuck, I was pissed last night.”

Zayn snorts. “Tell me about it.”

“That bad, was it?” Niall leans back against the counter to look at him, but Zayn just shrugs a shoulder and looks down into his steaming hot stinking coffee. “Dunno how you can drink that. Looks fuckin’ disgusting, put a drop of milk in it or something, at least.”

“No. Milk drains my creativity.”

“ _Milk_ drains your creativity?” Niall laughs, “so, is it, like, _all_ dairy or is bread all right?”

“Morning,” Liam mutters, padding into the room. Everything goes a bit stiff. “Hey, that’s my pudding - no, you know what, it’s all right, you have it, it’s much too old anyway.”

Zayn scrunches his nose in disgust and gives Niall a look, but Niall just shrugs a shoulder and continues to eat. Food is like women; preferable young, but still good old.

“God, I think I drank a bit too much last night,” Liam says, pulling a carton of Harry's milk out of the fridge, “just need a big huge bowl of porridge to settle my stomach before I hit the gym later.”

Niall groans inside of himself. Zayn groans out loud, loudly enough for the both of them.

“What?” Liam exclaims exasperatedly, “what did I do now?”

Well, for one, you shagged the bird I had dibs on.

“You’re just an oblivious chump, Liam,” Niall says instead. He’s too hung-over for fights or confrontations and, even if he _is_ angry at the situation with Lucy and _wants_ to be angry at Liam for it, he isn’t _really_. He’s never in his life been able to hold a grudge for more than one night. It’s irritating, sometimes. But it makes for longer-lasting friendships, that’s for sure. “Just stop talking, we’ve all got poundin' head-aches.”

Liam nods and goes about making his vomit-inducing - and vomit-looking - porridge.

They stand around in a dreadful, strangulating awkward silence for all of thirty seconds.

Then Harry comes down. He heads to the fridge, complains that Liam took his milk, grabs a couple eggs and some bacon and then turns and says; “okay, what the hell is going on in here?”

“Oh, just making a bit of porridge to settle my stomach before I hit the gym later.”

This time, everyone groans.

 

*

 

**HARRY**

He makes scrambled eggs this time, because Liam is nice enough as to not use up _all_ of his milk. He makes bacon too, because he bought it and it’s there - not because Louis deserves it. He toasts some bread, wipes it with butter and arranges everything nicely on a tray. The other’s mutter about it, ask if they can have some, moan that it isn’t fair that Louis gets to be spoiled with breakfast in bed.

And, they’re right.

Louis doesn’t deserve breakfast in bed. He doesn’t deserve to be catered to. Hell, sometimes, Harry thinks, he doesn’t even deserve _him_. But, then his inner grown-up reminds him that relationships aren’t black and white. They aren’t ' _you do this for me so I do this for you_ '. No one _deserves_ your love. They just have it or they don’t. And, if they do, it’s something near impossible to stop giving it to them.

Also, he really wants Louis to eat something.

He bumps into Louis halfway up to his room. “What the hell? What are you doing here?”

“Out of your bed, you mean?” Louis teases. He’s in sweatpants and a hoodie, hair in a mess still, but he’s got his phone in one hand and his backpack slung over his shoulder as though he’s on the go. “M’on the way to the library. I’d forgotten. Study group-thing.”

“What?” Harry exclaims, not even trying to conceal the outrage and disappointment in his voice, “you _just_ said you’d stay in bed all day,” _Harry’s_ bed, that is, “and what, now you’re all like, like-”

“Dressed?” Louis grins, “yeah, sz’a rarity, innit.”

“But, you-” ergh, “study group, did you say?”

“Yeah. Why, d’you need me to Face-time you on my way there to make you believe me?”

He isn’t pissy. Not yet. He’s just joking right now, but Harry knows it won’t stay that way for long if he keeps pushing.

“Right, well… ehm… kiss goodbye, then?”

There’s a twitch in Louis’ expression. Then he throws on a weird wide smile and says; “running late, babe!” and disappears down the stairs.

“Jesus, huh,” Lucy says, because apparently she’s been standing in her door, eavesdropping, “hey, can I have Louis’ breakfast, then?”

“Yeah. Whatever. Whatever.”

 

*

 

He ends up letting Lucy drag him into her room to ‘sit and chat’. Really, it turns out, she’s bored as hell, but afraid to go outside in case she should run into Liam or Niall. The Niall-thing, Harry doesn’t quite get; Niall never holds a grudge for more than, like, an hour. But, the Liam thing’s a given; it’s awkward enough as it is, having drunkenly shagged one of your housemates. Sort of like a one-night-stand that never ever _ever_ leaves the following day. Also, just to make matters worse, Liam’s one of the least socially capable people Harry knows. He can’t just laugh it off. He _won’t_ just laugh it off. He’ll escalate the awkwardness to it’s absolute peak for as long as he possibly can and it won't even be on purpose, which makes it even worse.

“Poor Luce,” Harry says, pouting a little, “I feel for you.”

They’re sitting in her bed, cross-legged and face-to-face, sort of like pre-teen girls telling secrets at a sleep-over.

“I mean, I- and Niall seemed upset about it too.”

“You shouldn’t worry about him; Niall never really gets all that upset.”

“Hm.”

“But be wary of Zayn. I mean, I don’t think he cares who Liam sleeps with all that much, but you know… he’s very passionate about things. Never know how he’d react. In the name of ‘art’.”

She chuckles. “Right, fuck.”

“Fuck indeed.”

His gaze catches on her last untouched slice of bacon again. He’s been eyeing it for a while. It doesn’t seem like she’s going to eat it, but he’s afraid that if he asks if he can have it, she’ll say yes just to be polite and then go hungry.

“You look lost in thought,” Lucy says then, “s’it about Louis?”

Right. “Yeah,” he says, because, apart from bacon, things are always about Louis in some way or another.

She nods, pushing her plate off of her lap to rest back against her pillows. So, she isn’t having the bacon, then. “Ehm, can I-”

“So, what’s with you too? Are you, like, a couple or what’s…” she sees his expression, the one that fell over his face when she interrupted him after he’d finally found the courage to ask for the bacon, and mistakes it for irritation; “- oh sorry, I didn’t mean to pry or anything.”

“Wha’?”

“What?”

“Can I have your last slice of bacon?”

She frowns, glances at the bacon and then looks up again, grinning. She pushes the plate at him. “Have at it, mate.”

“Cheers.” It’s the best slice of bacon he’s ever had. Good enough that he decides he might as well share too; “no, Lou and I are… m’not really sure about labels and whatnot, but, we… like, we both started uni last year and moved in here, right? And at first we were just mates and stuff… I wasn’t really thinking about guys in that way, I guess. Not much, anyway. It seemed easier just to get with girls, you know?”

“Yeah. Or, I mean, I don’t, but-”

“Yeah. Yeah. But, like… we just, there was always this _thing_ \- between Lou and I. I didn’t realise it until later on, and then there was a bit of back and forth. We were kind of like… you know, Lou’s very proud and stuff. He won’t say it first. He’ll make you spell things out to him before he ever lets you in on what he feels about stuff. You know?”

“Yeah. Or, I mean, I don’t know him that well, but-”

“Yeah. Yeah. So, like, I had a girlfriend at some point. And, then I didn’t. ‘Cause of Lou and stuff. And we went on, like - this was right before we went home on break - we went on, like, a long weekend trip to my uncle’s house in Tuscany. And just, kind of, well…” he grins a little, “never left the bedroom, if you know what I mean.”

She gives a small chuckle. “Yeah. Or, I mean, I-”

“And ehm… yeah, we went home on break. Never really spoke that much about what things meant. I guess I figured we’d figure stuff out. And… I don’t know, he seems a bit weird now that we’re back. Sometimes he’s like he used to be. Sometimes he’s all over me. Sometimes, he’s just like,” he holds a palm up, as in ‘stop’, “ya know?”

“Yeah. Yeah, well-”

“And, like… I don’t know. I don’t know. I really don’t know. I mean, if it were just the partying and getting pissed a lot, it’d be one thing, you know. But it’s also, like - sometimes in the middle of the day and stuff. He’ll just, push me off or not let me close. Physically, mostly. It’s like… hot and cold, you know?”

“Yeah,” she breathes, fish-mouthing a little, “hm. Sounds frustrating.”

“To say the least.”

“Hm.”

Hm.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**ZAYN**

“Zayn. Zayn… How do I- what do I- how do I put this…” Miss Bourne gathers her long nails at her mouth, eyes squeezing together for a second, and then she throws them out at him wildly, “you’re back!”

Zayn points a hand at his own chest. “I’m back?”

“You’re back!” she cups her own face, shaking her head, eyes going wide with joy, “you’re back, love. I don’t know what you’ve done, I don’t know how you’ve done it, but you’ve rediscovered your passion. It is, how do I put it… _hot_. It is hot. Before it was lukewarm. Today it is hot. I shall hang this picture in the classroom just to remind you to keep doing _whatever_ it is that you’re doing because,” he pauses, just to catch her breath, and meets his gaze again, “you’re back, Zayn. You. Are. Back.”

He glances at the masterpiece he’s just given in. It really is something. “Actually, could I take it home with me? I want to show it to my housemates.”

“You haven’t yet allowed them to see this magnificent piece of art?”

“I wanted to hear your opinion first.”

“Oh, well, my opinion doesn’t matter. What matters is the emotions, the hot-red passion with which you’ve painted this piece. You must hold onto it, Zayn, whatever it was that inspired this kind of work. -  _Magnifique_!” she adds, even though he’s certain she’s never been to France once in her lifetime.

Oh well.

He takes the painting home, anxious to see the reactions of the gang. Don’t get him wrong, he won’t use their opinions for shit; they wouldn’t know true art from their own hairy ball-sacks, but he’d still like to see their expressions.

It is quite a powerful piece of work.

“What. The. Fuck.”

“ _Language_ , Liam.”

Liam stands with his half-curled fingers, cramped at his own mouth, eyes nearly popping out of his skull.

The rest stand behind him, looking a little short for words. Zayn doesn’t blame them; sometimes words just aren’t enough.

“Zayn,” Liam says, voice calm and low in a way that tells Zayn he’s on the verge of explosion, “that is _me_. That is a naked painting of _me_.”

“What?” Zayn gives the piece another look, “no no. I think it depends on how you interpret it, Liam. That’s the great thing about art; it’s the eye that see’s, innit. It is whatever you personally interpret it to be.”

“No,” Liam says, tightly, “no,” he jumps forward, placing himself beside the photo and throwing a hand out at it, “this is _literally_ , without a shadow of doubt, almost like you’ve looked at a picture and tried to copy it, _me_. _Me_! This is me, fuckin’ starkers, this is me. You’ve painted me naked and showed it to your art teacher.”

Zayn gives a little chuckle. “Now now, Liam, don’t flatter yourself-”

“You’ve even painted the walnut-shaped mole on my left arse-cheek!”

Well, well.

 

*

 

 **HARRY**  

When he comes home from the gym - something he’s started doing recently, as a means of getting rid of some... frustrations - he finds the house in utter shambles. Liam and Zayn are shouting at each other about some nude painting, Lucy is catering to Niall like she’s accidentally killed his dog and Niall is - clearly - taking advantage in the form of acting upset just to have her cuddle him. And Louis’ upstairs, apparently.

If Lucy weren’t too caught up in making things right with Niall, she might tell Harry not to run right up there. She might tell him to have some fucking dignity, for once.

But, well.

He takes three steps at a time, then hurries to his room to discard of his bags, fixes his hair and then hops back down to the first floor and knocks on the door to Louis’ room. There’ music playing in there, loudly, and there’s no answer any of the four times he knocks.

In the end, he just opens the door and walks in.

Louis is sitting in bed, duvet on, music on blast and his laptop in front of him. He’s wearing that blue striped sweater Harry loves on him, the one he wore the first night Harry realised he wanted to kiss him something so badly, and his hair’s a bit tousled, and his face is just lovely, of course it is, but for once, that’s not enough to distract.

There’s a bottle between his hands. A bottle of vodka.

If the fact that he’s got an open bottle of vodka in his lap at 5 PM on a weekday isn’t enough to make Harry worry, his reaction to being caught with it is; the second he notices Harry come in, he grabs the bottle, shoves it up against the wall and tries to cover it with the duvet. Then he looks back at his laptop like nothing’s happened, even though they both know that Harry saw everything.

Harry stands in the middle of the room, a little bit speechless. Louis’ swallows hard, nerves working from his jaw down to his collarbones, but he still doesn’t move his eyes off of screen.

“Uhm… hi,” Harry says eventually, because it seems like Louis’ decided he’s just going to ignore him until he goes away. Well, he won’t. “What are you doing?”

Louis coughs, taps at his laptop and then shakes his head at nothing. “No, it’z just, ehm… i wasz, it’s some reading for ehm, szchool.”

Oh no. “Oh fuck, you’re _really_ drunk.”

“Wha’?” his head snaps up, before it sways around a little because he can’t even keep it in balance properly.

Harry moves forward without thinking, forgets about playing nice and letting Louis control the pace of things, and takes the laptop off of him. He puts it on the nightstand, straddles Louis over the duvet and then pulls it down and finds the vodka-bottle, completely ignoring Louis’ slurred-out objections.

It’s more than half-empty.

“Why would- Louis, it’s five pm, why would you drink half a bottle of vodka?”

“M’not that drunk, really, sz’not so bad, really.”

Harry drags a hand down his own face, trying to gather his thoughts. It’s sort of impossible, because the bottle is open and going straight up his nostrils, giving him a near-instant head-ache. “Right, ‘ve you got a lid for this or-”

Louis turns to his nightstand, but it looks mostly like he’s just pretending to know where it is for the sake of seeming more put together. Harry sighs and gets out of bed. He leaves the room, heads to the loo and then empties the entire rest of the contents down the drain. He throws the bottle out of the window - something he’d never usually do, because, hey, the environment, but he’s honestly a little beside himself right now.

He comes back, finds Louis exactly where he was before, thank fuck, except now he’s pulled his knees up under his chin and is chewing on his nails. He looks so vulnerable and sorry that Harry can’t even find it in himself to tell him off.

He closes and locks the door behind him, and then slowly, warily, makes his way across the room. “I just threw away the bottle,” he says, sitting down at the foot-end of the bed, “I, uhm, I… honestly don’t even know what to say right now.”

“Please don’t tell anyone.”

Harry lifts his head to look at him, naturally, and his expression is so nervous and pleading that Harry just wants to jump across the mattress and wrap him up in his arms. He doesn’t, though. He controls himself. “What the hell is the matter, Louis? Did something happen? Did something happen to make you sit here and drink a bottle of vodka straight in the middle of a weekday or- 'cause if nothing happened and you’re just doing this randomly, then that’s-”

“No, it’sz, I- something did happen. Something happened. Earlier, it’sz, it was- yeah, I… I’m sorry.”

Right. Okay. Something happened. Harry nods down at his lap. Something happened to make him want to drink. “Earlier, as in, earlier today?”

“Wha’?”

Harry sighs. “Something happened earlier today, is what you’re saying?”

Louis narrows his fuzzy eyes at him a little, trying to comprehend. After a moment, it seems to snap into place and he nods eagerly. “Yesz, yeah, it’s, it was- yeah, and then I went and bought a bottle.”

“You went and bought a bottle. All right. Because something happened.” All right. He supposes that could happen to anyone, really. Hell, it’s even happened to Harry; once, last year, before they were really together, Louis had some bloke with him for the night and Harry had to make small-talk with him in the kitchen the following morning. He got himself drunk before noon that day. Never felt less cool, though. “So- what happened? Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I- not right now, I’m too…”

“Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, ‘course.” Harry sits for a moment, watching his own tripping feet on the carpet. Then he shakes his head exasperatedly and turns to Louis again. “Babe, you’ve gotta come to me if shit goes wrong. You can’t just- you know, buy yourself a bottle and then think things’ll be all right the next day. I don’t- I don’t understand that you wouldn’t come to me and talk instead of… you know. That’s just stupid.”

Louis throws a hand out. “You weren’t home.”

“Well, you know you can call me if things are important. Even if they aren’t. I’d leave class in an instant if you texted me you needed me. Even if it’s just for a kiss and a cuddle or something,” he places a hand on Louis’ ankle, trying to lock down his glazed-over gaze, “all right?”

Louis nods. “All right.”

“All right. All right.” Harry drags a hand down his own face again, then shakes his head and pushes off the bed. “All right, come on,” he says, reaching a hand out for Louis, “let’s go.”

“What are we-”

“We’re gonna go take a shower and then we’re going sleep this off in my room. Come on.”

Aside from a few grunts and moans as he’s being hauled out of bed and stumbles through his pigsty of a room, Louis obliges. Harry can't even blame him for falling into things and knocking things over as they walk; it’s a maze even for himself, trainers and trousers and tea-mugs, fucking _everywhere_. He needs to find a way to get Louis to allow him to help tidy this place up one of these days.

Harry scurries him up his stairs, nudges him into the bathroom and resists the urge to try and help him undress. He’s not _that_ drunk.

“Szo, you wanna- you wanna….” Louis throws his boxers at the back of Harry’s head, “wanna get in here with me, then, szexy?”

Harry drops his chin to his chest with a sigh. “Just wash yourself, please. You stink of booze.”

Louis doesn’t say much else after that.

After showering separately, they dress themselves quietly. Harry gets water, a bit to eat and then they watch something on Netflix in his bed together. They don’t cuddle, they don’t even touch, they don’t even really watch whatever it is Louis’ put on the screen. Once the episode ends and the food’s been eaten, Louis seems to have sobered up a bit.

“Do you want to talk about it now?” Harry asks, pushing the laptop off the mattress.

Louis crawls out of bed to flick off the last lights, the room going awfully dark suddenly. But, maybe it’s better that way. Easier.

He shuffles back under the duvet and lies down on his back with a long sigh. “I suppose I should,” he says, finally.

Harry shifts onto his side. “Yeah?” He resists the urge to ask if it’s something he’s done; it seems a bit like... flattering himself. Not everything’s about Harry to Louis. Especially not these days, it seems. “What was it, then? You can tell me anything.”

“Just…” he chews on the side of his mouth for a moment, eyes on the ceiling still. In the end he says; “my dad died.”

Harry stiffens. “What?”

“My bio dad died, I- I just found out today. So… I mean, I’m not- don’t go so quiet, it’s not- I haven’t seen him in a million years, but… I suppose it was just,” he shrugs a shoulder, “bit of a shock, really. Was always a drunken bastard, him, though. Incredible he even made it this far. Well,” Louis turns sideways and gives a self-deprecating little smile, “like father like son, innit.”

Harry clears his throat, preparing to talk, but he can’t really find the words. In the end, he just says what he’s thinking; “you never spoke about him.”

“No,” Louis shrugs again, smile widening, but his eyes don’t really follow, “well. He’s not - he  _wasn’t -_ very interesting. Just some old drunk I didn’t know. Doesn’t matter.”

Harry lifts hand to the side of Louis' face, fingers curling around his jaw. “Mattered enough to make you drink by yourself in the middle of the day.”

There’s that flinch in his expression again. He drops his gaze. “Sorry,” he says lowly, “I don’t know… sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Lou. It makes sense that you- that you have a reaction, I mean, your _dad_ died. That’s- however little you thought of him that’s a big thing to, sort of… have to accept. I just, I mean, you don’t have to deal with stuff like that on your own. You really _really_ don’t, you know.”

Louis nods, but he doesn’t look all that convinced. He takes Harry’s hand off of his face, presses a kiss to the inside of his wrist and then turns, pulling on his arm to get him closer. Harry moves easily, fitting around him from behind and nuzzling into his neck. “I love you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah. Love you too.”

“Promise me,” Harry whispers, squeezing him closer, “ _promise_ me not to drink on your own like that again. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And we can- we’ll talk about this again. When you’re all sober. About your dad. I want you to talk about it with me.”

Louis sighs. “All right. At some point.”

“Yeah. When you want to. Whenever you want to. I’m here,” he whispers, and because it’s all a bit heavy, adds; “jump in on my fuckin’ exams and drag me outside just for a kiss and a cuddle, I don’t give a fuck.”

Louis chuckles softly. “Aren’t you sweet and accommodating.”

“Model boyfriend, me.”

“Boyfriend? Who the fuck’s boyfriend are you?”

“Oh, stop making yourself so difficult, you day-drinking loser.”

He laughs.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**NIALL**

Niall sits in the livingroom, eating crisps and watching telly. Aside from the fact that he could do with something to drink, maybe a tall glass of coke or a nice cold beer, he’s having a rather fine time.

That is, until Lucy enters the room. Then he’s not - most definitely _not_ \- having a fine time. He puts his mopey-face back on.

“You look mopey,” she says worriedly, stopping at the side of the couch.

“Oh, no I was just- nevermind. Nevermind.”

“What, love? What’s the matter? D’you need anything? Something to drink, eat, cuppa tea or-”

“Well…” he gives a long exasperated sigh and pushes his bottom lip out a little, “I could do with a beer, if you don’t mind. I’m just a little bit… you know. Can’t get that fuckin’ image of you and Li outta my stupid head.” He shakes his stupid head. “But that’s just me. I’m sorry, that’s not your fault.”

She looks as though she might want to cry. “Oh, Niall, I’m so sorry I’ve made you feel so uncomfortable in your own home,” she exclaims, “I hate this, I wish I could just rewind time or, or-”

He clears his throat loudly, “- _beer_.”

“Right. Right. Yes, ‘course, ‘course, yeah, anything you want, love.”

He watches her as she hurries off to fetch him his beer. She’s wearing a nice little skirt, not too short - when is a skirt ever too short on a girl like her? - and not too long. Just right, for her little body. Oh, he’d like to just-

“You disgust me.”

Niall turns back around. It’s Liam, sitting in the couch across from him. There’s a weird bleeding crack in his bottom lip. “You disgust me back. When did you get here? How are you so silent about it, that’s creepy as fuck, Liam.”

“I’ve been sitting here for over an hour, what the fuck.”

“Whatever.” Niall turns back to the telly.

Liam shifts around, but makes loud throat-noises and other things to try and gain back Niall’s attention.

Good thing Niall has no sense of pride, or shame, or whatever else it is that makes people stifle themselves. “What the fuck are you making cock-choking noises for, Liam?”

“Oh, I- I wasn’t - what do you even-”

“Shut up. What’s the matter with ya, Lip Tear?”

“Oh,” Liam touches two fingers to his lip. There’s blood on them when he takes them away. He licks over his lip and then pretends it didn’t happen, looking back at Niall. “You’re not upset with me, are you? About Lucy?”

“About Lucy?” he glances back at the kitchen where she’s been searching for a bottle-opener for minutes on end with no luck. “Fuck no,” Niall says, turning back to Liam with a grin, “this is a dream situation, mate. I’ve got her makin’ me sandwiches in the middle of studying and runnin’ to the shops for me just to get a can of coke. It’s ace; what shame can do to a woman.”

Liam looks at him incredulously. “You can’t just do that to her, that’s-”

“Niall, I couldn’t find a bottle opener, but I’ll run to the shops and buy one if you want!” Lucy yells.

“S’all right, love. I guess I’ll just go without,” Niall yells back, “- anyway, I shouldn’t be drinking alcohol. Not after how I nearly drank myself to death the night I saw you with Liam…”

“I’m going to the shops.” She runs out of the kitchen door.

Niall turns back to Liam, smiling smugly. “Why, looky there. Apparently I _can_ just do that to her.”

“You’re ruthless.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who fucked the girl my mate had dibs on. That’s worse than anything I’ve ever done, mate.”

“Gotta agree with Niall there, Li,” Harry says.

Niall turns to the lounge-chair. “How long’ve you been sitting there?”

“Bout three hours,” Harry says.

 

*

 

**HARRY**

He’s lying in bed that evening, waiting to fall asleep. He’s staring out at nothing in the pitch-black room, wringing his hands around under the duvet, wondering whether Louis’ come home from that pub-thing he had with his class-mates today yet. Wondering whether he should go down and check, just to be sure Louis hasn’t gotten himself too drunk again.

Then he gets a text.

**louis <3 - ‘u up?’ **

Well, then. He texts something useless, deletes, text something new, deletes again and then finally texts and sends; **‘yeah. u?’**

**louis <3 - ‘no’**

Another one ticks in before he finishes chuckling; **louis <3 - ‘yes idiot im on the way up 2 u now’**

If he isn’t lying then he’s the slowest man in the world. Ten minutes later, he still isn’t up. Harry checks his phone again, but there’s nothing. He crawls to the top of his stairway and looks down; nothing. He pulls on a pair of boxers and pads downstairs. Checks Louis’ room; nothing. He ends up standing in the hall for a while, wavering like an idiot.

Then he hears a sound. It’s coming from the bathroom down the hall. It’s water running.

“Louis.” When there’s no response he takes it as a ‘yes’ and steps inside.

It _is_ Louis, sitting at the edge of the bathtub, almost filled to the brim and damping hot. He’s pulled a little stool up beside it and placed a few candles, a bottle of champagne and a little bowl of chocolate on it. He’s plugged his phone into a little speaker that he’s placed in the windowsill above the tub, a low R &B tune filling the room.

Harry gives a closed-mouthed smile, backing himself up against the door to close it. “This looks cosy.”

“Yeah, well.” Louis cuts off the faucet and drags a finger along the surface of the water. “Was on me way up to you, but then I saw the tub and I... well. Felt like having a cosy time.”

“Hm?” Harry licks over his lips, watching Louis get out of the crouch he was sitting in and back himself up against a wall, pulling off his t-shirt. “Alone, or?”

“No, I mean, I was planning to share it with my husband,” Louis murmurs, stumbling a little as he shimmies out of his jeans and boxers. “But, since you’re here,” he says, straightening up again, “I suppose you’ll have to do.”

Harry slips his thumbs down the sides of his boxers, making eyes at Louis as he’s being watched. “What?”

“Nothing,” Louis says, pulling his own pants down at once. “Come on, then,” he says, pulling them off one ankle and throwing them at Harry, “don’t be shy.”

“Well, I haven’t had the liquid courage like you, have I?” Harry teases.

Louis turns at that, and Harry can’t tell if he’s said something he wasn’t supposed to, so he breaks character, stupid and fumbling as he is when it comes to Louis, and blurts; “sorry, I just meant, like, ‘cause you’ve been to the pub and that. You’ve probably had a few beers, I didn’t mean that I thought you’d-”

Louis ignores him, plunging one foot into the water, then another and then sits right down.

“- wow, how can you sit down so quick, I always take ages to get all the way in. Aren’t you hot?”

“Fuckin’ burning up,” he grits out, so tightly that Harry barks a laugh.

He gets out of his pants quick then, following Louis into the bath.

Louis turns to face him, throwing both arms over the edge of the tub and stretching his legs out, one in-between both of Harry’s.

“This is so lovely, darling,” Harry says, mimicking his position, “you’ve outdone yourself, truly.”

“I try, I try.”

“M-hm. You’ve even broken the chocolates up and put them in a bowl and everything.”

Louis turns to the little stool, picking one piece of chocolate up between two fingers and waving it around with a grin. “If you come closer, I’ll let you have it,” he says.

“What, the chocolate or…?” Harry lets his gaze roll down Louis and up again.

Louis reciprocates. “Whatever you’d like.”

He reaches forward, grabbing the edge of the tub just behind Louis’ shoulder and pulls himself close in one go, their faces suddenly inches apart. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Louis lowers his gaze at the intensity of it. His long lashes lay over his sweat-glaced skin, a bit of dampness accumulated at his top lip. Harry reaches his tongue out and licks at it. Revels in the sharp brush of air that puffs from Louis’ nose at it, the little flutter in his lashes. He moves to his chin, bitingly, up the side of his jaw, and keeps going because he tastes like something Harry’s missed for too long, salty and hot and just _Louis_.

“Thought you wanted this,” comes a little rasp.

Harry stops himself for a moment to find Louis grinning at him, waving the chocolate around.

Then, before Harry can snatch it with his mouth, he pops it into his own. Raises his brows at Harry.

Harry takes him by the jaw and kisses him hard. He pries Louis’ teeth apart by the tongue and licks in. Tipping his head back against the edge of the tub, Louis lets himself be kissed, kisses back lazily, but makes up for it with his hands, grabbing and kneading at Harry’s arse. He tastes like chocolate and chewing-gum and booze, and smells mostly like the latter close-up, but he still feels like himself, still sounds like it, gaspy and sweet between kisses.

He slips a hand between them, wrapping it around Harry's cock and begins to tug. “Mhm?” he hums lowly, dragging his mouth down from Harry’s lips to the crook of his neck as he speeds the pace of his hand, “you wanted that, didn’t you?”

“Oh, baby, I want _anything_ you let me have at this point.”

Louis chuckles lowly against his shoulder, moving his hand up from Harry’s cock up  his stomach, ignoring his little whine and continuing up until he can wrap it around his shoulder. “Let’s enjoy the bath for a bit before we get into all of that,” he says, turning Harry gently, “sit.”

Harry rests down between Louis’ legs and Louis links an arm around his shoulders. They sit for a bit, just enjoying the warm bath, playing with each other’s fingers and listening to the music.

“This is nice,” Harry hums, melted back in the heat of Louis’ body, feeling at the strong arms that envelop him, “I’ve missed just… being with you.”

“Yeah,” Louis breathes, his right arm tightening a little around Harry’s shoulders. He drops a peck to Harry’s temple. “Love you.”

“Love you too, sweetheart.”

“Now,” Louis reaches for the champagne, “we should celebrate that, shouldn’t we?”

“What, that we both love each other?”

“That, yeah,” he says, closing both arms around Harry as he prepares to pop the bottle, aiming at the wall across from them, “and the fact that we aren’t acting like fuckin’ pussies like we were all of last year.”

The bottle pops, foaming over and into the water. Louis reaches for a glass, but Harry stops him, taking it out of his hands and having a quick swig from the mouth of it. “Wasn’t acting like a pussy last year. _You_ were. I was just waiting for you to come ‘round.”

Louis takes the bottle back. “Whilst being chin-deep in pussy.”

Harry gives a little chuckle. “Distracting myself from you.”

“Yeah, you sounded very distracted, yellin’ like a fuckin’ madman in the middle of the night. Jesus, the girls i saw comin’ down your stairs.”

“What about’em?”

“Looked like they needed fuckin' hip-surgeries after, that’s all.”

Harry slaps at him. “Fuck off,” he laughs, “and hand me back the bottle, you’ve had like four swigs.”

“Have not,” Louis whines, but reaches it around for Harry to put his mouth on anyway. He doesn’t hand it over, though, just waits for Harry to wrap his lips around the mouth of it and drink. Harry gives a little puff of a chuckle out through his nose and then dips down and does it. “Tip your head back,” Louis tells him, before he lifts the bottom of the bottle, nearly choking Harry on champagne.  

“Fuck you,” Harry coughs and wheezes, once Louis finally pulls it back and champagne splutters from Harry’s lips and all over the place.

Louis laughs and slaps the mouth of the bottle to the side of Harry’s mouth a few times, suggestively. “Hardly two inches in, mate, what the fuck are you gaggin’ for?”

Harry laughs and coughs and laughs a little more. “Wasn’t ready.”

“Textbook excuse.”

Harry laughs again. Gives the arm Louis has wrapped around him a little bite and revels in how the muscles tense and twitch back between his teeth. “When we get up to my bed tonight, I’ll make sure you need a full fuckin’ hip replacement.”

Louis barks a laugh. “Is that so?”

“It is, it is. And you’ll be yellin’ like a fuckin’ madman all night as well.”

“Oh please. You’ve never once lasted past the five-minute mark.”

It’s true. Not with Louis. It’s terrible, really, and he can’t even blame it on the anal, because he’s done that with girls before, countless times, and managed to go on for ages - or, well, at least a while. It’s just Louis. It’s hard not to want to pummel him into the grown and fill him up fast as possible, once you get going. It’s just Louis, being so unbearably sexy that it chubs Harry up in the kitchen on a school-morning when he’s just play-fighting with Niall and his creeps shirt up and Niall slaps his arse and it jiggles. It’s just Louis. It’s hard not to come within seconds.

“Well, if-” Harry shifts around to take the champagne bottle off Louis’ hands and put it away, “wow, we polished that off quick. - Well, anyway, if you,” he takes Louis’ hand and leads it downwards, “if you let me come now, quickly, I’ll last for ages upstairs, yeah?”

“Hm. How?” Louis tips his head back against the edge of the tub, letting Harry kiss him again, “can’t underwater, it’sz too-”

“Yeah.” Harry pushes back and then hauls his heavy body out of the tub. He grabs a towel and begins to dry himself off, listening to the sounds of Louis slipping around in the bath, trying to get out or something. “You’re gonna sleep in my bed tonight, right?”

“Course, I’ll- ‘ve just got to get some boxers or szomething…” He manages to get out, padding up behind Harry and pressing his hard cock inbetween his arse-cheeks. “Unless, of ‘course,” he mutters, low against Harry’s back as he reaches around and takes a hold of Harry’s cock, “we’re sleeping naked.”

“Aren’t we always sleeping naked?”

“You are,” Louis presses a kiss to the spot between Harry’s shoulder-blades and begins to pull him off, fast, making Harry hunch and grab the edge of the sink for something to hold onto, “I only szleep naked if you tell me to,” he slips his free hand up the back of Harry’s thighs and inbetween his cheeks, “sz’just how it is,” he mutters, before he pushes two fingers up Harry’s arse.

“Arh, _fuck_ ,” Harry hisses when Louis curls it just right.

He comes seconds later.

Once he does, he’s able to think clearly again.

Able to turn around and look at Louis while he wipes himself off, and see that fuzzy look in his eyes again, hear the way some of his S’es have turned to Z’s and how he can’t seem to stand still properly. He’s pissed. He had more at the pub than Harry thought and now he’s had much more of the champagne than Harry had and now he’s pissed. Now he's pissed again.

Once they get up to Harry's bed and Louis rolls close, starts to rub him and kiss up the side of his neck, Harry pushes him off gently, rolls over him and and tells him; “I wanna suck you off. I’m gonna suck you off.”

“No, you szaid-” Louis digs both hands into Harry’s hair and pulls him up so he’s hovering above him, “I want you to fuck me.”

But, he can’t do that. Not when he’s something near sober and Louis’... this again. “M’not gonna fuck you.”

“Yes you are. I pulled you off downsztairs, you’re gonna fuck me now.”

“M’not gonna fuck you,” Harry says, raising his brows at him, “not tonight. Maybe in the morning.”

He shrugs out of Louis’ hands and rolls onto his back again, pinning his gaze to the ceiling. This is so fucked-up. He’s probably fucked-up too, just for saying no. Louis isn’t erectile-dysfunction-drunk or unable to communicate or anything. Harry could easily fuck him now and feel fine about it later. But, it’s shit. It’s just shit, that Louis' been drunk almost every single time they’ve even snogged lately.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?”

Harry sighs. “You’re slurring your words. You can’t look me in the eye, not properly. You won’t feel me properly, I won’t feel like I’m fucking you, I’ll feel like I’m- I don’t know, fucking some version of you that isn’t as sharp or witty or- I’m not gonna fuck you when you’re pissed.”

“Fuck off, I’m not pissed.”

“You’re too fucking pissed for me to want to put my dick up somewhere that you’re supposed to be able to tell me if I’m hurting you, all right? And- I want to be able to fuck my boyfriend without feeling like I’ve got to get him drunk beforehand. All right?”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, fine, if you wanna be a child about it.”

Louis makes an exasperated noise. He lies stiff for a few seconds, then makes another noise and pushes off the bed and pisses off.

Harry stifles the urge to follow just to be sure he doesn’t fall and hurt himself on the way down the stairs. 


	8. Chapter 8

**ZAYN**

"Zayn. Hang on a minute, I wanted to speak to you," miss Bourne says one day after class, beckoning Zayn to come sit at her desk. 

Once he does, she folds her hands together, clacking those long nails of hers for ages. He's afraid of saying anything to throw her off course because, as he and most of her students know at this point, she's quite easily distracted. Comes with the artistic streak, she told them once, after she'd trailed off for six and a half minutes in the middle of a lecture. 

"The thing is," she says finally, "I wanted to talk to you." 

Right. "Yes." He straightens up in his seat. "Yes, I'm all ears." 

She nods. "You see... the pieces you've been showing me lately- the theme of them and the feelings they evoke in me, they've- they've made me think," she begins, "Zayn, you see, I'm having this art exhibit downtown in not too long. Mostly, I'm showing my own work as well as some of the works of my old, more talented students. But, we have a bit of space left in the exhibit and... if you'd like - provided you continue to bring in this level of work, I can show a few of your pieces. Get your name out there." 

His mouth drops open. His heart skips a beat. He makes a weird guttural noise that make her frown and asks if he needs water. 

" _No_!" he exclaims, "no! That is- that is- yes, yes, I would love that. I would really, I'd just- I'd just love that, miss Bourne, I'd, yes. Yes, that would be incredible!" 

She gives a closed-lipped little smile. "That's what I thought. But, oh, you'll have to bring in a few more pieces before I can be sure. Really delve into whatever it is that's made you paint the way that you have recently. Give me the best of the best of the deepest darkest parts of you. Yes?" 

"Yes." He nods eagerly, "yes, yes, I'll- anything, I'll do- everything." 

"That's good. That's good, Zayn. Now, I'm curious to know if you've done anything differently? Anything you might've noticed, since your art has taken such a turn lately?" 

Well. There's only really one thing he can pin-point. "I've been drinking a lot of coffee lately," he therefore lies.  

"Right. Well," she mutters, "anywho, I've got stuff to do. Scram! Go and drink your coffee and paint! Paint, child, paint!" 

 

*

 

There are two issues at hand; the first regards his self-view. If he allows himself to accept the fact that he may or may not need, want and love Liam, that changes the way he see's himself. He's not an independent being, he's not one who is able to make do on their own. He _needs_ someone else in order to succeed. That's one issue. He can deal with that. In the name of his art, he can come to terms with hating himself, just a little. 

The second issue is a bit more fickle. 

It regards the fact that, however well he does manage to accept the fact that his art craves Liam's cock, _getting_ said cock has become an issue in itself. Liam avoids him like the plague. Liam won't even look him in the eye over the kitchen island, let alone let him have another taste of that majestic thing he has dangling between his thighs. Last they shagged, Zayn got lucky. Liam was frustrated with his homework, procrastinating and just flat-out horny. He hadn't been able to find the charger for his iPad for a week and therefore, he hadn't been able to get to his usual downloaded jerk-off material. Therefore, he hadn't wanked.

Now, he's bought himself a new charger.

And Zayn can't paint for shit. 

When Zayn comes back to the house that day, Liam isn't yet home. He steals himself to a little peak inside Liam's bedroom. The charger lies on the bed, so easy for someone to snatch without ever being found out.

Zayn casts a glance over his shoulder. The coast is clear. 

Just as he's listed halfway across the room, though, ready to snatch, stuff and sprint, someone asks; "what are you doing?"

Zayn spins around on his heel. "Oh, I was just- I-"

"If I can't even look for my headphones in your room, you sure as hell don't get to come snooping in mine," Liam says.  

He seems to have just come out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair wet, dark and smoothed back from his face. His lips look nice and plump and his dick too, through the outlines of the towel. 

"I'll go wherever the fuck I want," Zayn says, slowly, "if I want to go into your room, I'll go into your room. S'just how it is."

Liam frowns. "What the fuck are you talking about? Get out, I'm about to get dressed." 

Zayn closes his arms over his chest, demonstrative. "I'll stay." 

"What the fuck?" Liam exclaims, staring at him incredulously, "just leave, for fuck's sake, I need to get dressed." 

Slowly, Zayn looks him up and down. "Make me." 

"What?" 

"Make me," he repeats. 

Liam's lips drop apart, his eyes narrowing a little. "What did you say?" 

"I said; _make_ me." 

"Right. Right." 

Liam closes the door behind him and steps in, the towel dropping to the floor. He doesn't get dressed for another long while. 

 

*

**NIALL**

"You sure we shouldn't call in advance just to check if they've got room tonight?" Lucy asks.

They're on a brisk evening walk, on their way out to eat. Niall never eats out, unless it's for the rare date or because someone, for some insane reason, doesn't want to take the take-away home with them or eat in the car, but there's too much commotion at the house right now. Liam and Zayn seem to be trying to kill each other up in Liam's room and Larry have hidden somewhere, probably to argue over some ridiculous little miscommunication like usual.

Lucy and Niall were getting a bit sick of all the noise so they decided eating out was the only thing they could do. 

And so, Niall thought he might as well use the opportunity to take her some place nice. Wine and dine her and then, maybe, finally close the deal tonight. They've been flirting for much too long now. They're endgame and she knows it. They might as well get to the good part sooner rather than later. 

So, he suggested the only nice place he knows; the place Zayn held his birthday-dinner at last year, when he wanted to be pretentious and fancy. In fact, the place is so pretentious and fancy that it even has one of those little podiums when you walk in and a lady behind it, referring to herself as ' _their hostess for the night_ '. 

"This is nice," Lucy says as they get seated at a little table near the window and are dealt their menu's, "properly cosy." 

"And fancy," Niall reminds her.

She giggles. "And fancy." She glances down at her menu, then up again, smiling nervously, "just so we're clear, this isn't a date, is it?" 

"No no," Niall assures her, "just a dinner between housemates. We'll even call it a minimized housemate-meeting if you want."  

She lets out a long breath. "All right."

"Don't sound so relieved." 

She laughs. "Sorry, sorry." 

"S'all right. I've got loads of better bitches lined up anyway." 

She kicks him under the table. " _Niall_!" 

He laughs. "Relax, relax. You know you're my best girl, Luce." 

"Aww. You're my best friend too, Niall." 

No. _No_. 

 

*

 

**HARRY**

Harry readjusts his headphones and nuzzles into his pillow. It's around six pm and he hasn't been out of bed all day. Louis dragged him to some theme-thing at a pub downtown last night and by the time they came home, he had about an hour until he had to leave for class. So, they decided to have a stay-in-bed-and-cuddle-all-day-day. They slept in until two pm and have lived off of sweets and toasties and tea all day. 

It's been paradise. 

Right now, Louis' napping again and Harry's lying on his stomach beside him, listening to some good music - which Louis told him to ' _put that hipster-shit in your fuckin' headphones or I'll smash your phone_ ', but whatever. 

Due to the gigantic headphones around his gigantic head, he doesn't notice the non-gigantic boy beside him begin to wake and shift around and speak to him. 

Not until Louis shifts close enough to bite his shoulder. 

Harry chuckles into his pillow. 

Louis moves his headphones off one ear and kitten-licks into it. "Hey." 

"Heey," Harry drawls, too lazy to lift his head out of the pillow. 

"Whatcha doin'?"

"Not much, not much. You?"

"Hm," Louis drags a hand down Harry's spine, fingers stopping at the bottom of his shirt and slipping up under it. "You, maybe," he murmurs, changing directions and going downward instead, down the back of Harry's pants. 

Harry grins into he pillow and then catches Louis' wrist, pulls his hand away and rolls on top of Louis, pinning it to the mattress. Louis lets him take control easily, legs closing around Harry's waist and fingers curling up in the back of Harry's hair as they kiss. Harry rolls his hips down against him, slowly at first and then faster, humpier, as they both get too hard to be in their pants. 

"M'gonna fuck you," Harry says, buckling with his own jeans, pulling them down to his thighs with his pants before he sits back to help Louis out of his, "yeah?" 

"Fuck yeah," Louis agrees, hurrying out of his clothes before he flicks Harry on the thigh, "all off. Take it all off and get under the duvet with me." 

Harry gets himself naked in a second, fetches the stuff and then shuffles under the duvet with Louis and gets between his legs again, their hard cocks rubbing together. He throws a hand out for the lube and gets two fingers slicked before he presses them at Louis' rim and Louis throws his head back, lips dropping apart as he accommodates. He throws his head around some more, bites his lip and moans as Harry fills him with three fingers, gets him so riled up he tries to reach for his own cock.

Harry stops then, slapping Louis' hand away and pulling the fingers out.

"I don't, uhm- do I have to, like," he mutters as he begins to slick his cock up, "wear a condom or?" 

"No, you can just- go without. S'only you, so..." 

Harry smiles, getting down on his elbows so he can press a chaste kiss to Louis' lips. "Only you for me too, babe," he says, nudging his cock in place and starting to push in. 

"Mhm - _ah_ , easy. Easy, Harry, you-" Louis hisses, immediately putting a hand on Harry's lower belly to try and keep him from going in too deep. 

Harry reaches up and smooths Louis' hair back from his forehead, holding his head in place to try and pin his gaze down. "Shh, relax. Relax, you- look at me. Look at me, Lou. Don't tense up so much, you're makin' it worse. Relax." 

"Can't fuckin' relax when you're tryna cram a fuckin' cock up my arse," he spits, before he throws his red-flushed face back in the pillow again, "- fuck, _fuck_ you." 

Harry pulls back a little, looking at where he's pushing into him. "S'only halfway in right now," he mutters, dropping an abundance of lube onto his cock, "you're really fighting it, can you-" 

"I'm fuckin' _trying_. Just- get down here." 

Harry takes him under the knees to fold him up and lies down with him, pressing a few wet little kisses to his mouth as he slowly bottoms out. 

"Fuck, _fuck_ , no, I can't- fuck, this isn't-" Louis rambles, and when Harry pulls back a little to look at him his mouth is pressed into a thin wide line, his brows tight and there's a vein in his forehead twitching. "I can't, I can't, you've gotta pull out, I-" 

Harry cups his face by both hands. " _Relax_. Just- relax. We've managed before, babe." 

"Yeah, but-" he cuts himself off, not because he's struggling to speak, but because he doesn't want to say it. 

It's just as well because he doesn't need to; what he meant to say, what Harry was already thinking himself is; they haven't fucked sober since that weekend in Tuscany. Louis hasn't had anything up his arse sober since then.

"Do you need to be drunk?" Harry asks, half to distract Louis from the sting and half because he's been wondering, "s'it because it hurts when you're not drunk or- 'cause I didn't think it was that bad in Tuscany, once we'd gone a few rounds. So I don't..."

"No, shut up, it's-" Louis drags his hands down Harry's back to his arse, cupping his cheeks to press him in a little deeper, "s'fine like this, just- go slow. Just- like this, slowly." 

"You sure?" Harry asks, raising his brows at him, because he's nervous that Louis' just saying that to get out of answering the question. 

"Hundred percent, babe."

Louis smiles and clenches his arse a little so Harry hisses and moans. 

He surges down to kiss Louis again then, deep and tonguey as he starts to grind into him. It's a mix of winces and moans, ' _ow, not that deep_ 's and ' _slow down, slow down, please_ 's all throughout, but it's still good. It's still close, chest to chest under the duvet, kissing and whispering sweet little words into each other's ears and threading their fingers together in the sheets. If you ask Harry, this slow dragged-out session is the best sex they've had in ages. 

Louis comes first, all over Harry's hand, and then Harry pulls himself off and comes up Louis' stomach.

Afterwards, they clean up and go back to bed. They haven't had dinner yet and Harry's stomach is rumbling, but he doesn't even attempt to get up and go make them some. Getting to lie close with Louis, soft and hot and sweaty, playing with each other's fingers and pressing little kisses all over, it's so much better than food. Or sex. Or anything.

"Love you," Harry whispers between little kisses, "so much."

"Love you too, babe."

"And that was amazing. It's so nice that we could... you know, do it sober for once."

Louis drops his gaze.

Harry puts a finger under his chin and lifts it. "No, Lou, it wasn't meant in any bad way. It's just been coincidental, hasn't it? That we've only fucked when you've been-"

"Yeah. Yeah, 'course. No, yeah, this was really nice. I love you."  

Louis turns around so Harry can spoon him. Harry nuzzles his nose into his hair and drags his fingertips up and down the underside of Louis' arm. As he lies there, in bed with his man, a crazy idea pops into his head. Well, not insanely crazy - he's had it before, many times. But, now, in this quiet little moment under the duvet, is the first time it's felt all right to suggest it. 

So, he does. "You should move in with me." 

"What do you mean?" Louis chuckles, "we're already housemates." 

"Yeah, but- but, like- you should switch rooms. We should share a room. We could make your old room into a gym or a game-room something."

Louis twists his neck to look at him, a mix of a frown and a grin on his face. "You want to share rooms with me?"

"Yeah. Why not, I mean- I mean, we're already together. Boyfriends who live together should share a bed together. Shouldn't they?"

Louis fish-mouths for a moment, thinking about it. "Right," he says, turning around again and resting his head down on Harry's arm, "right. Yeah. Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay."

Okay.


	9. Chapter 9

**HARRY**

The following day, when Louis' gone to class and Harry isn't meeting until noon, he trips happily down the stairs. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the bacon's sizzling on the pan - or will be in a minute - and it's just a lovely day to be alive. He's gotten laid, by a boy who he both gets to call his boyfriend and who wasn't pissed, for once, while they fucked. He writes a mental note to ask Louis if he needs a massage or a painkiller if he waggles later on today.  

In the kitchen, he hums and sways his hips in tune to the music streaming from the little radio in the corner. "Godmooorning," he sings-songs, when someone comes padding into the room.

"Someone got laid last night," Lucy grunts, before she smacks his bum and gets up on her tip-toes to look at the stove over his shoulder, "that just for you and Lou or-"

"No, there's loads, you can have."

"I think you might want to save some for Lou, though. Judging from the state of you he's really outdone himself last night."

Harry grins down at the pan. "He's just himself, nothing more, nothing less."

"Such a lucky boy." 

"Yeah, I am." 

She pinches his bum again. 

"Oi, hands off, I'm taken." 

"Sorry, your bum just looks so cute in those boxers." 

"Thanks. I put them on for you, actually." 

"What? I thought you said you had a boyfriend." 

"Yeah and he doesn't mind the look of me naked. But the other lads told me I had to at least cover my bum when I'm out of my room. You know, now that we've got a lady in the house." 

She giggles. "Oh right. I see. Who told you that, Niall?" 

"Yeah." 

"Did he tell you to tell me he told you that too?" 

Harry turns with the pan, giving a sly grin and a shoulder-shrug.

Niall didn't tell him jack, but she doesn't have to know that. He helps where he can. He loves love. And life. Things are looking up, as of late. Things are falling into place. 

"Lou and I are moving in together," he tells Lucy when he's slapped their bacon onto toasts and they've slapped their arses onto the couch, "well, moving into rooms together. He's moving up to mine." 

"Hypergamous." 

He laughs. 

"Oh, by the way," she says, mouth half-full of food, "who is, ehm..." she stops, for seconds after seconds, chewing, and he tries not to find himself irritated because, well- he's been told by a few people, once or twice, that he isn't the fastest speaker himself, "who is Grace?" she finally finishes. 

He takes his gaze off the telly they weren't really watching anyway. "Grace?" 

"Yeah. Grace. This, ehm-" Lucy wipes her mouth with the back of her wrist, swallows and straightens up, "this girl came by last night. Niall had gone upstairs 'cause he was mopey that I didn't want to kiss after our date. Zayn and Liam were doing god-knows-what kind of crazy shit downstairs and you and Lou were up in the attic, doing- well, probably the same as Zayn and Liam. And, so, I went to the door and she asked if you were home and I said no before thinking, cause- I didn't want to cockblock. Anyway, she said she needed some vinyl-record she'd borrowed you ages ago. Can't remember the fucking name of it now, of course. Oh, and she said her name was Grace." 

Right. Right.

He pushes off the couch. "I'm popping out." 

"Can I have the rest of your food? - _Harry_!" 

 

*

 

Grace lives ten minutes away on the bus now. He only knows where because she said she'd moved in with her class-mate Tilly and, way back when, she'd brought Harry to Tilly's housewarming-thing. Of course, that's ages ago now and he walks down the wrong street twice before finally finding the right building. He considers ringing the door-phone, but he'd rather not get cussed at for ages before being allowed in so he waits for an elderly lady to come out and then jumps into the hallway.

Tilly, her other flat-mate Mags and Grace live on the third floor to the right. Harry remembers it when he reaches up there; the cheesy doormat saying ' **PLEASE DON'T STEP ALL OVER ME :'(** ' and the little wooden jumping jack hanging from a nail in the door. 

He remembers Tilly's face too, once she opens the door, the deep crease between her brows and the sharpness of her voice when she greets him; "what the fuck are you doing here?" 

Right. "I, uhm-" he rummages frantically through his bag for evidence because she looks seconds from going off on him for showing up just to pester them, "I came to give this back," he says on a sigh of relief, fishing out the record, "they- my, uhm, housemate said Grace came looking for it, so..." 

"All right, who the hell left a used tampon on the bathroom-floo- what the fuck are you doing here?" Mags says, walking up behind Grace. Harry remembers her too - especially at the ' _fuck_ '-part. God, these women hate his bleeding guts. 

"Is Grace home?" he asks. 

Tilly gives him a repulsed look up and down. "She doesn't want to see you." 

"God, he's porked out as well," Mags joins in, "maybe she _should_ see him, just to be reminded how much she _didn't_ miss out on." 

They laugh. 

Harry sucks his gut in. "Is she home or could you maybe, like, give this to her?" he waves the record around, but no one looks at it. 

"Guys, what's going on out he... oh." Grace stops dead behind her Tilly and Mags, who still wont move aside so he can actually see her properly. "Harry." 

"Grace."

She weaves her way through her shield of girlfriends, turns and mutters something that makes them look rather displeased and then closes the door before them.

"Hi," she says, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the closed door. "So, ehm... can I have it?" 

He glances down, up, and then down again, realising he's still got the record in hand. He hands it over.

"You didn't have to come all the way over to get it, you know," he mutters, because the fact that she's come outside might mean she wants to talk. Or, well, at least not slam a door in his face the second he's given her what she needed, "you could've just texted and I'd have brought it." 

"Mhm. Yeah, I know," she sighs. Her eyes roll past him, out at nothing, glazing over a bit. She chews on her lip for a moment, then looks back at him and says; "if I'm honest with you, I kind of wanted to come by. I don't really care about this record." 

"Oh." He glances at it, wondering whether it'd be too much to ask to have it back, then. He likes it. He likes it a lot. 

She elaborates before he has a chance; "I wanted to, uhm... well, I suppose I was hoping that I might- run into Lou. Or something. I don't know, I just... it's ridiculous of me to even want that, I sound so pathetic." 

She doesn't. She might have, if she'd said she was hoping to run into Harry, but she didn't. She wanted to run into Louis. And that's what makes this whole thing so terrible. That's what makes Harry jump out of his seat and run across town the second he hears she needs anything. That's what makes him feel so guilty he can't stand it, thinking of her. 

Louis was her friend first. She was Louis' friend first. They were friends first, before anything, before the row house or this town or Harry. They came up from Donny together, happy to be going to the same university, found two free rooms in Harry, Zayn, Niall and Liam's row house and rented themselves in there. They were inseparable, in the beginning, spoke with exactly the same accents, - still do - cared about exactly the same things and... fell for exactly the same boy. 

And then that stupid, stupid callous boy they both fell for was too stupid to realise he liked boys early on. So he went and had a relationship with Grace, because she was a girl and she was pretty and she was there. Then, once he realised that the person he really wanted looked nothing like someone he'd ever thought he'd fall for, but was so much more beautiful than anything, he cheated on her. Over and over again. He hooked up with Louis behind her back in the house she lived in for months. 

He didn't just make her lose her boyfriend; he made her lose her best friend too. 

"He misses you too, I think," Harry hears himself say.

He isn't even sure whether it's true. Louis hasn't mentioned her once since she moved. Harry gathered it was self-preservation more than anything; better pretend she never existed than have to deal with the guilt. He's sure Louis does miss her, somewhere behind all of the other things he distracts himself with. 

"I miss him too," she says, voice gone shaky, "oh, this is so stupid, I just- I still hate him for what he did, but I just... I just miss him. Like, a million times more than I hate him, you know?" she lifts head, eyes a little damp, "I just miss my best friend." 

Harry nods, a hard lump forming in his throat. He hates seeing people cry. Often makes him cry too. Or maybe it's just the guilt, getting at his tear-ducts. "I'm sorry. - I know that means nothing to you, coming from me. I know I don't mean shit to you, but I- I _am_ sorry. Just about... how shit everything turned out."

She drops her gaze to close her cardigan tighter, nodding at the floor as she wipes her waterlines by her shirtsleeves. "Yeah. Anyway, I- thanks for bringing this and... you know, say hi from me to him. If you can." 

"I will."  

 

*

 

When he comes home, though, he finds Louis asleep on the couch, hugging a pillow. Niall and Lucy are watching telly and Louis seems to have been too, as well as drinking a cup of tea he never finished. His fridge is falling into his eyes and his lips are parted around the corner of the pillow he snuggles. Harry takes it out of his arms gently and then fits himself into Louis' arms instead, reveling in the ' _aaaaw_ 's the other's give at it.

Louis smacks his lips, spits some of Harry's hair out of his mouth, grunts irritatedly and then locks an arm around Harry's torso and pats his chest, like ' _stay_ '. 

Harry takes his hand and kisses his little fingers, then decides quietly in his mind, that mentioning Grace can wait a day or two.


	10. Chapter 10

**HARRY**

A couple of days later - a morning, actually - Louis promises Harry that they'll begin 'the big move' after school. It isn't really a big move as much as it's a gigantic up-cleaning of Louis' room, but Harry doesn't put it like that. He's pretty certain that Louis either a) is physically incapable of seeing the mess or b) finds it so incredibly offensive that anyone would want him to not live in a pigsty that he's defiantly decided to keep it that way. 

Anyway, Harry arrives home after school and tidies the attic up a bit, just to get it ready for when Louis' stuff's coming up there. 

"I'm thinking we'll move his dresser up there," he tells Niall as he comes down to the living-room, bored with waiting for Louis to come home, "and- you don't think he'll want to bring up that ugly beanbag-chair, do you?" 

Niall's sitting on the couch, eating crisps and watching telly. If he didn't look extraordinarily mopey in the face, Harry would assume he was as happy as he ever gets. 

"What's the matter with you, you look like you've just come home to an empty fridge," Harry exclaims. Niall laughs, but only a little. "- Oh, dear _god_ , what's the matter, Niall?" 

Niall sighs. "Nothing." 

"Heey," Harry nudges a foot at him from where he's lied himself down on the other end of the couch, "I'm your seventh best friend in the world, you said that yourself once. Talk to me." 

"Please," Niall holds a palm up to silence him, shaking his head at his own lap, "don't mention the word ' _friend_ ' right now. Or ' _zone_ '. Or ' _platonic_ '."

Before Harry has a chance to ask what that's all about, there's a vibration in his pants - and not the sexy kind.

**louis <3 - gonna be home late. birthday thing at trev's place. sorry. love u' **

Not very sexy at all. Ergh. 

"Well," Harry grunts, "looks like I've just lost all of my plans today. Should've known." 

"What do you mean?" 

Well. Louis' always been the impulsive type, but never like this; never in the sense that it gets in the way of the things that matter. Like promising his boyfriend that he'd come straight home after school so they could make a day out of moving rooms. Lately, though, he's been less reliable than ever. Harry should've expected that this sort of thing could - _would_ \- happen. 

"Nothing," he says anyway. No use talking shit about his boyfriend behind his back. They are a team, after all - however much internal friction said team does suffer. 

He and Niall fall out of conversation, turning back to the telly again. They lie around for a while, playing lazy footsie and watching some show that's shit, but great to make fun of. 

Then Lucy comes down. 

She's in a little black dress, which would be extraordinarily slutty if she didn't have the figure of a sexy twelve-year-old boy - don't quote him on that. She's got a little shimmery black cross-over with her, thin dark stockings on and high heeled boots. Her hair's up in a bun, tight to emphasize her pretty little facial shape, and she's got on dark red lipstick. If Harry weren't in a committed, monogamous relationship he might say she looked rather... spankable. 

"Someone's all dolled up," he goes for instead, because it's just gay enough that it's all right, "where are you off too, hottaay?" Fuck, he went too far. 

No one comments. 

In fact, it's unusually quiet suddenly, considering Niall's in the room. 

"Oh, ehm... just out," Lucy mutters, pulling on her coat and checking her hair in the entrance hall-mirror, "on a, uhm... date." 

"U-ooooooooooh," Harry sings. 

She chuckles awkwardly. "Yeah, I mean, I don't know him, really - we met at the library and... I don't know. I don't know. I'm a bit nervous." 

"Oh, really? Who is this guy? S'he hot? What's he look like, you-" he stops himself, realising there's a tension in the room that he really isn't helping.

Niall's pointedly staring at the telly, watching tampon-commercials as if he's genuinely interested in being able to play tennis in a white mini-skirt without having blood seep out of his vagina, and Lucy looks on the verge of throwing off her coat and falling to her knees and begging him for forgiveness. Harry still doesn't quite understand how that came about; her allowing him to make her feel guilty about dating people when she's single and they've never so much as even kissed. Maybe she just wants everyone to get along. Harry isn't sure. 

"Well, have a good time anyway," he says, "don't stay out too late." He throws in a wink. 

She leaves then, completely forgetting to giggle at Harry's cuteness. Hmpf.  

 

*

 

Zayn and Liam both arrive home around the same time. They then - not nearly as discretely as they probably think - sneak down to Zayn's cellar to fuck. 

Harry checks his phone again. Louis hasn't texted him in a while. It's definitely too late to start doing any moving now too, but Harry can't quite bring himself to be as irritated about that as he is worried about Louis being out late and getting pissed. He doesn't text Louis, though, because he knows he'll come off as the controlling obsessive boyfriend that he really doesn't want to be. 

And, then, as he sits there beside a grumpy nail-biting Niall, biting his own nails too, the door gets opened. 

They both jump up.

"Lucy?" Niall exclaims. 

"No, it's just me," Louis replies. 

Niall falls back into the couch with a heavy sigh. 

Harry runs to the door. 

It's pissing rain out and Louis' absolutely soaked, his denim jacket gone from light blue to light black, fringe clinging to his forehead and long lashes clumping together. He looks beautiful.

"Oh god, babe, c'mere."

Harry grabs him by the front of the jacket and proceeds to help him out of his wet clothes without thinking to ask for permission. Louis doesn't seem particularly drunk, although he does smell like beer and giggle a little more than need be.

"Fuck, not the- not the fuckin' pants, 'arreh," he hisses, teeth still clattering a little, and pushes Harry off, "Niall didn't pay for a private show, did he?" 

Harry glances over at Niall in the couch. He isn't even looking at them. But, well. "Go up and change and I'll make you a cup of tea, then," Harry says, smoothing Louis' wet fringe back from his forehead to press a quick peck to it, "you all right?" 

"I'm fiiine," Louis chuckles, reaching up to cup Harry's face and pull him down for a kiss. He tastes like beer too. "Love you, sexy," he breathes softly, so Harry kisses his beer-mouth again anyway. 

"Love you... mhm... too..." 

"Guys, could you not snog in the hallway when Louis' semi-naked?" 

Louis tips back down from his tip-toes. "Prude," he tells Niall, before he walks around Harry.

Harry turns to watch him walk up the stairs. "M- _hm_ ," he says, loud enough that Louis hears and laughs and makes a hip-swinging show of it, "oh yeah, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout." 

"Ew, guys, seriously."

"You're just jelly cause you ain't got love in your life," Harry says, prying his eyes off of Louis' arse to peel his clothes off the puddle on the floor instead.

"Yeah," Niall says simply, "I am. I really am. So cut the shit."

"Jeez, sorry, mate."  

Louis comes down again in snuggly sweats and Harry hugs him for five minutes straight in the kitchen, just because. They cuddle up in a blanket on the couch and order pizza in an attempt to cheer up Niall. Sadly, the pizza guy asks for ' _that sexy little girl who lives here_ 's number and Niall gets mopey again. Lucy texts Harry that she isn't coming home tonight and Harry isn't sure how to deal with that or tell Niall so, the brilliant friend that he is, he just flees to avoid confrontation. 

He pulls Louis up to the attic with him and into the bathroom where they share a damping hot shower. 

"Hey, c'mere for a sec," Harry says, sitting naked on the sink counter afterwards. 

Louis gives his hair another rub of the towel and then slings it around his shoulders and steps in. 

"Open up," Harry says, taking Louis by the chin to tilt his head back a little. 

"What-"

Harry pries Louis' mouth open and takes the spare toothbrush he's just prepared, shoving it into his mouth. "Don't like kissing beer-breath," he explains as he goes about brushing Louis' tongue and teeth. 

The smile Louis had on a second ago evaporates like nothing. He doesn't get pissy or try to shove Harry off, but he doesn't joke around either, even as the situation's pretty fucking ridiculous; one grown man brushing another one's teeth for him. 

"Spit," Harry says after a minute or so, taking out the toothbrush. "Sorry," he mutters, wrapping his hand around the back of Louis' neck as he spits, "but, you know, it's just a bit-" 

"S'fine," Louis says, straightening up and wiping his mouth by the back of his wrist, "s'fine. Come. Lets go to bed." 

"Right. Yeah, okay." Harry jumps off the counter and follows him soundlessly. 

Once they're lying in bed, kissing softly, Harry still can't help pulling back to nag him a little more; "I can't understand what I said wrong, Lou. It's fine that you'd had a few beers with your mates, I mean, I'm not, I don't... I don't get that you'd get bothered when I said I just don't like the smell of it." 

Louis sighs, breath hot against Harry's lips. "It's fine," he mutters, pressing a quick kiss to Harry's lips as if in conclusion before he turns around in his arms. A moment later, when Harry's fitted himself around him from behind and begun kissing up the side of his neck, though, he does go on; "it was, it was just 'cause Trev dragged us all to the pub after class and then- I don't know, you know how it is. They basically forced me to have a few." 

"Yeah yeah, you don't have to explain," Harry murmurs, moving his kisses down Louis' shoulder and further onto- wait. He stops in his tracks. "I thought you said Trev had a birthday thing at his place?" 

Louis' stiffens in his arms. "Oh, I- well, yeah. Yeah, you know; birthday thing at the pub." 

But that still doesn't add up. "But, like..." Harry pulls back a litle, "but, you texted me that it was at his place. That there was a thing at his place." 

"What?" 

Harry pulls further back. "You said it was at Trev's place, Louis. His birthday thing. Do I need to pull my phone out or-" 

Louis jerks around. "What, are you accusing me of lying to you now?" 

"No, I-" well. It just doesn't make sense, "well, it just seems a bit weird that you'd say one thing first and then change the story. I'm not saying you're lying, I'm just commenting on it. It's weird. I don't understand."

Louis scoffs. "I'm not lying." 

"Right. Okay." 

Louis shoves at his arm. "Seriously, Harry. What, are you cross now?" 

"I'm not." 

"Well, you've moved onto your back and you're staring at the fucking ceiling instead of looking me in the eye, so-" 

Harry defiantly keeps his gaze there. "Well, I can't talk talk to you properly, can I? When I point something weird out, you just get angry. How am I supposed to talk to you, then?" 

"You don't have to talk to me, there's nothing we need to talk about because you must've misunderstood me. I was at the pub with Trev to celebrate his birthday-thing. That's it." 

Harry finally looks at him. Studies his face for a moment. "You're fucking lying." 

"I'm fucking not." 

Harry stares at him for another few seconds, trying to figure out what he wants to say. The thing is, he _knows_ Louis. He knows what Louis looks like when he lies. He knows that high set of his brows and that little twitch at the crook of his mouth. He knows how he gets worked up and defensive the second someone calls him out on it. And this isn't the first time he's acted weird lately. This isn't the first time he's gone out without saying where he's going or where he's been - in fact, he never tells Harry _anything_ about _anywhere_  lately. 

"Are you fucking other people?"

Louis' jaw drops. "Am I _what_?" 

"Are you fucking other people?" Harry repeats, pushing up on his elbows. He clears his throat and forces himself to go on, "I know we might've rushed into things, I know you might've felt pressured since I broke things off with Grace for you, but you really- you really, _really_ aren't making me happier by saying you want this relationship and then fucking around on me because you don't really. If you wanna be fucking different people just tell me and- and then I won't be mad at you, we'll go back to being friends or, fuck, I don't know. But don't string me along, that's so fucking mean." 

Louis doesn't say anything for a while. It looks like he's having trouble even processing Harry's words. "Wait, hang on," he finally says, "wait, so- so, you're accusing me of fucking around on you and you're telling me you wanna go back to just being friends? That's what you're saying now? All over of a little misunderstanding via text?" 

Harry sighs exasperatedly. "You know just as well as I do that it's not just about the text, Louis."

"I'm- fuck, what do I- so, what do I do now? I tell you I'm not fucking other people and you tell me you don't believe me and then what? I can't win, can I, I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. Give me a fucking break, Harry, I've never ever given you a reason to think I was cheating before, why the hell am I suddenly guilty until proven wrong?" 

Harry drops his face into his hands, pressing at his temples. "No, but- but, I just," he rambles, lifting his head up again, "I just feel like there's you and then there's me and then there's this thick fucking wall between us that you've put up ever since the break and I don't know how to- I don't know what's going on with you. And you get mad whenever I try to talk to you about it. If it's your dad or if it's-" 

"Stop. Please." Louis clutches his own head. "Please." With a long sigh, he looks up at Harry again, shaking his head. "You know, I was so looking forward to coming home and just getting into bed with you and not having to answer a bunch of fucking bullshit questions. I thought we could just... snuggle up and have a good time, but of _course_ you're in a mood, interrogating me about some stupid fuckin' text. Telling me I'm a liar and a cheat and incapable of having a monogamous relationship and- _fuck_. You're so mean." 

Harry bites his lip. "All right," he sighs, "all right, yeah, sorry." He isn't really sure whether he means it, but he can't take the look of Louis, can't take the sad tone of his voice or the way his mouth droops downwards. "Sorry, you're right, I'm picking fights for no reason. Sorry. Sorry, come here." He reaches his arms out for Louis, "let's not talk, yeah?" 

"We are better when we don't, aren't we?" Louis grins, going surprisingly easy and snuggling up close, "and I'm not fucking around on you. Contrary to popular belief, I  _am_ capable of not sucking every dick I see." 

Harry chuckles into his soft hair. 

"Besides," Louis adds lowly, sliding his hand down to cup Harry's crotch, "why would I go looking elsewhere when I've got the best cock in Britain right here at home?" 

"What, your own or-"

Louis rolls his eyes at him. "You are so..." 

"Come on. Onwards and downwards," Harry says, giving his head a gentle push, "best cock in Britain needs a little love." 


	11. Chapter 11

**NIALL**

He’s sitting on the couch, eating crisps and watching telly, like he always is, except now he isn’t enjoying himself. He isn’t, because he’s sitting right across from Lucy and fucking Frederik. He’s some sort of ' _Danish exchange student_ ' or whatever kind of pasty-country it was. He’s a _natural_ blonde, as opposed to Niall, and he’s got tree-trunk arms and the ' _most charming gap between his front teeth_ '. Niall didn’t remember Lucy ever referring to his snaggle-teeth as charming, but now this gap-toothed motherfucker’s suddenly the sexiest man alive.

Well, the only man alive who gets to have his arm around her like that. Ergh.

“How do you say…. ' _you have really pretty eyes_ ' in Danish?” she asks him.

“Du har en kæmpe pik,” he replies sweetly.

“Dy ha… in kampee pek,” she giggles.

He pecks her on the cheek. “That’s so good, babe.”

“Thank you. How do you say… hm,” she turns to Niall, “Niall, is there anything want to learn how to say?”

He grunts in irritation. “I don’t know, maybe ' _can’t you see I’m fucking busy watching telly here_ '?”

“ _Niall_!”

“No it’s okay, I just have to think over it a second,” the gap-toothed immigrant says, “øhm… all right, it’s ' _jeg er sur fordi jeg ikke kan få fisse_ '.”

Niall narrows his eyes at him. “Where in that sentence did you fit the word ' _fucking_ ' in?”

“Well, I-”

“Anyone for a cuppa?” Lucy interrupts, jumping off the couch.

“Yes please, babe,” both Niall and Gap Tooth say at the same time.

Gap Tooth laughs it off, but the second Lucy’s out of sight, he drops the act. “Do you have a problem with me, Niels?”

“My name is not Niels, what the _fuck_ , I’ve corrected you _six_ times in the last half hour.”

“Jesus, calm off, I just asked you a question.”

“Calm _down_ , you fucking idiot, not 'calm _off_ ',” Niall hisses, “and by the way, you might wanna have your teeth fixed, i could fit my entire fuckin' cock through that gap.”

“Well, maybe that says more about the size of your cock than anything else,” the Dutch guy says smugly.

Niall turns back to the telly with a huff.

“Oh so you just ignore me now?” Niall does just that. Gap Tooth scoffs. “Fuck, mand, manglende respekt alligevel.”

“I can still understand it when you say ' _fuck_ ', you know.”

“Og jeg er fucking ligeglad.”

 

*

 

**ZAYN**

“Oh yeah, fuck, _fuck_... ah...”

Zayn rolls off of Liam and plops down on his back with a loud thump and a sigh. They started on the bed, what feels like hours ago, but now they’ve somehow ended themselves up on the cellar-floor. There’s something hard and sharp, maybe a broken paintbrush or a lighter, sticking into his back and he’s so sweaty he feels like he’s one big human puddle, but he just can’t bring himself to move. He’s so goddamn spent that all he wants to do is lie here and soak up all of the inspiration that’s just been pummeled into him. And then paint, once he’s fueled.

“We’ve been fucking for a while now,” Liam mutters.

Oh, yes. He's still here. “That is true,” Zayn says.

“We aren’t even making up excuses or getting in fights about it anymore.”

“Also true.”

A hand sneaks itself onto Zayn’s chest. It just lies there for a moment, tapping restlessly. Then Liam asks; “so does this mean we’re back on?”

“Back on?” Zayn shifts up on his elbows to frown down at him, “what do you mean ' _back on_ '?”

“It’s pretty clear, innit. ' _Back on_ ' as in ' _back together_ '. As in, I can’t go and shag other people and you can’t either. As in, we forgive and forget and then pick up where we left before we split.”

Wow. _Wow_. Ehm-

“Zayn, I’m not saying I _need_ it to be like that. I’m just asking whether it is or not? Things are… up to you. You know that.”

Right. He glances over at the empty canvas he put in the easel just before Liam came down here, ready to take on all of his emotions. All of his frustrations, the ones that come with not being able to let go of the love you once had. With fucking someone that you shouldn’t be and not being able to control it. The passion, the forbiddenness of it all, that’s what he needs.

Not this- this… boredom. “We aren’t back on, Liam,” he says, “you cheated on me.”

Liam sighs exasperatedly. “Yeah. I know. I’m as sorry about that as I was the other two million times we discussed it. Can’t go back on it now though, can I?”

“No, but- but once a cheater, always a cheater.”

“Oh, mate, come on, you know things aren’t that black and white in real life. I wouldn’t cheat on you again, you know that. And, there _were_ things which drove me to do it in the first place, you know that. You weren’t an angel.”

“So, what, now you’re saying it was _my_ fault that _you_ cheated?”

Liam sighs again, shaking his head. “Nevermind this conversation,” he mutters, pushing off the floor, “I was just asking to know. You’re stirring up a fight that isn’t going to happen, Zayn. I can’t be bothered with this.”

“Fine, then leave!” Zayn screams, “leave just as soon as we’ve finished, leave me to cuddle myself all alone on the cold, hard floo-”

“Oh, for _fuck's_  sake, Zayn, you don’t even _want_ me to cuddle you, you just-” he cuts himself off, shakes his head and turns and leaves.

And Zayn- well, Zayn paints.

 

*

 

**HARRY**

He promised. He fucking _promised_ they’d do it today. He’s pushed it back twice now and, judging from his lack of responses to Harry’s messages, he’s going for a third.

And, well- Harry should probably just leave it. Let Louis come to him and bring it up himself. It’s too pathetic to keep nagging and it’s also useless because Louis doesn’t respond well to nagging; either he gets pissy or he somehow manages to turn it around on Harry and make him feel guilty for even mentioning it. So, Harry won’t nag.

Not when he’s already sent three unanswered texts this afternoon.

He gets off his arse and heads down the stairs. Just as he comes down, Liam comes up, face a sweaty pink-flushed mess. “Been down to the sex dungeon again, have we?”

“Last fucking time,” Liam grits out, shoving past him.

Harry wavers in the hallway, watching Liam walk away until he slams his bedroom door behind him. Then his eyes roll over to another door.

He bites his lip. He shouldn’t. He probably shouldn’t. It’s a breach of privacy and it’s so much worse than nagging and- it’s such a stinking mess in here. Harry stands in Louis’ doorway, just gawking at the state of his room. His jaw might be on the floor, but it isn’t because there _is_ no fucking floor; there’s only mess, mess and shit. It smells so stale in here.

He’s _got_ to give it a little bit of a tidying. Louis’ _got_ to be able to forgive that.

Harry steps in.

Someone grabs him by the back of the shirt and yanks him back out.

“What are you doing?!” Louis screams, shoving him up against the wall, “don’t go in there when I’m not home. What were you doin’, snoopin’ in my stuff?”

Harry’s lips part. He doesn’t speak.

Louis holds him against the wall by an arm pressed to his chest, panting into his face. “You can’t just- you know.”

“No.”

“No.” Louis licks over his lip, glancing into the room and then back at Harry. “So- just, you know, have some fucking respect,” he mutters, having calmed himself a little, and then he throws his school-bag into the pigsty and closes the door. “I’m not hiding things from you, but I like my privacy,” he says, turning back to Harry and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Right. Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry.”

“Good. Good.” Louis nods. “Good, then.”

“Good,” Harry echoes, mimicking his posture.

Louis rolls his eyes. “Let’s go to your room, yeah?”

Would be yours too if you’d just go through with the fucking move already. “Yeah, okay.”

They go upstairs and find something on Harry’s Netflix and snack on the sweets he bought for them to snack on once they’d finished the move. Well.

“I’m sorry too,” Louis mutters at some point. It’s so unexpected that Harry almost pauses the movie at it.

“What did you just say, you nearly gave me a heart attack there?”

Louis flips him off from where he’s lying with his head on Harry’s chest. “I’m sorry,” he repeats a little later, “for fucking this move-thing up for us a couple of times. I just need to- get some things in order first.”

“Your room or?”

Louis pinches him. “Yeah,” he still says, “yeah, actually. I, ehm- I wanna tidy it myself and stuff. Then I promise you I-” he stops to clear his throat, “I promise I’ll be better for you. I just need to get stuff in order and- I can be better for you, Haz. I will be.”

“Lou- _is_ ,” Harry sighs, because the sudden earnesty paired with the frailness of Louis’ voice makes his chest tighten, “you don’t have to ' _be better_ ' for me. You don't have to do anything differently for my, you- if you want to fix up your room by yourself, you don’t have to apologise. I get it. It was me, _I_ was in the wrong earlier. You wouldn’t go snooping through my phone, I shouldn’t be walking into your room when you aren’t there.”

“Right.” Louis drags a finger around Harry’s chest, making a circle and then a heart and then just poking Harry in the nipple.

Harry chuckles and presses a kiss to his hair and says, thoughtlessly, “did react pretty fuckin’ violently, though, didn’t ya?”

Louis finger stops dead at his chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Oh, _God_ , he does always manage to ruin situations. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it in a bad way, I- it was kind of sexy, actually. You manhandling me.”

Louis lies stiff for another second, then chuckles a little and softens up again. Phew. Crisis averted. “You wanna be manhandled now?” he asks, grinning up at Harry.

“Don’t sound so surprised, everyone likes a good manhandling every now and then.”

“Everyone? Even Arnold Schwarzenegger?”

“ _Especially_ Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

Louis barks a laugh.

“You wanna…” he turns around on Harry so they’re chest to chest and dips in to press a little kiss to the side of Harry’s throat, “you wanna…” he presses another one right under Harry’s jaw, “wanna fuck me or something?”

“Straight the point,” Harry hums, kicking the laptop off of his legs so he can grab Louis by the arse and hitch him up higher and kiss him, “I… mhm… like it,” he murmurs between kisses, “like it a lot,” he adds and gives Louis’ lovely arse a squeeze.

Louis chuckles a little into the kiss and pulls back, now straddling Harry’s lap. “How d’you want to fuck me?” he asks, pulling his shirt off.

Harry gives a cheeky little upward thrust. “I think you know.”

Louis pulls Harry out of his jeans and gets down and takes him in his mouth for a bit, sucking him until he’s so hard it hurts not to come.

“Babe,” he grits out, untangling his hand from the back of Louis’ hair.

Louis pops off of him, eyes rimmed red and a long string of saliva running down his chin. He wipes it with the back of his sleeve. “Yeah?”

“Get up here.”

Louis crawls up and straddles him again, dipping right in for a deep wet cock-tasting kiss. Harry's fingers dig into the flesh of his arse-cheeks as he grabs and kneads at him, steers his arse to grind down on his hard cock. He uses two, then three fingers for a while, really getting Louis nice and open before they fetch the lube and Louis warms it between his palms as he watches Harry's cock, hungrily. 

“Not getting any younger here,” Harry drawls.

“I’ll take as long as I bloody well please,” Louis says, but takes Harry’s cock in hand then, slicking him up.

He comes a little closer, dips down for a quick peck as he lifts himself up and aligns Harry’s cock with his rim and then slowly lowers himself onto it. His forehead presses to Harry’s, arms caging his head as he huffs choppy breaths of air into his face.

Once he’s fully seated, he slides his face down into the mattress beside Harry's face, cursing into it.

Harry cups the back of his head and lifts his hips to grind into him a little, just to make sure he doesn’t slip out. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” Louis huffs, lifting his red-flushed face out of the mattress. “Yeah, I- _ungh_ \- hold me.”

“Aaw,” Harry can’t help himself from cooing as he begins to fuck up into him with rhythm and wraps his arms around him to keep them close, “Lou wants to be held.”

Louis doesn’t say much, just finds Harry’s mouth and kisses him again and again, soft little pecky things. Harry rakes his fingers through the back of Louis’ hair and nuzzles into his face, reveling in all the little noises Louis can’t stifle when he’s got a cock up his arse. That’s one of the best parts of fucking Louis; all other aspects of his life, he’s able to control. All other aspects of sex, even. But, when he’s got Harry inside of him, fucking him right the way he loves it, he can’t focus on anything but just that.

It’s just the two of them, close as two people can be.

“You feel so good, Lou,” Harry pants into his ear, exhausted from pumping his hips upwards, but in no condition to stop, “best thing in the world is when I get to be inside of you,” he tells him, because it’s true and Louis breathes a soft little ' _yeah_?' in response, “sometimes it’s all I can think about… getting in you.”

Louis lifts his head to look down at him, eyes more black than blue right now. His lips are apart, wet and pink and freshly bitten into, “that good, is it?”

Harry gives an exasperated noise. “Like fuckin' crack to my cock.”

Louis laughs breathily and then clenches around him a little, making Harry grab his arm and hiss.

“- Don’t come yet,” Louis exclaims.

He surges down to pepper kisses along Harry’s jaw and down his neck until Harry starts to fuck him a little deeper and all he can really manage it hissing and moaning into the crook of Harry’s neck. Harry fucks him slowly from then on, long dragged-out pull-outs and deep grinds in, hands running up and down Louis’ back and his sides and into his hair and his mouth.

At some point, he rolls him onto his back and fucks him into the mattress instead. Once he’s so close to coming he has to stop and snog for a while just to hold off, he gets a hand between them and pulls Louis off.

“Come here,” Louis pants, when he’s just spurted up both their stomachs, and tugs Harry’s face down to his own by the back of his hair, “finish in me. You can- just come in me. Please, baby, I want you to fill me up.”

The last add-on makes Harry give a noise he didn’t know he could make and then lift Louis’ arse off the mattress by both hands and pound into him. His balls slap loudly against his arse and Louis pants and winces into his ear, urging him on, begging him to come. Begging him to come inside of him.

Harry comes so hard he bites down on Louis’ shoulder just as hard.

By the time he’s finally rode every last bit of himself out inside of Louis, he’s nearly drawn blood and Louis’ nails are buried deep in his back.

“Oh, uh, sorry,” he mutters, still a bit delirious, and presses a kiss to the bite-mark.

“S’okay,” Louis whispers, flattening his palms out where he’d buried his nails and rubbing as if to make it all better.

Harry presses another kiss where he bit on Louis, one up his neck, another to his jaw and then an abundance all over his face.

“I love you,” he says as he pulls back to smile down at Louis.

“Yeah,” Louis breathes, reaching up to push Harry’s hair back from his face, “love you too, darling.”

“No, but, really,” Harry goes on, suddenly a bit overwhelmed with it, that look in Louis’ eyes and the quirk of his mouth when he smiles that closed-lipped private smile that’s just for Harry, “I’ve fallen so badly in love with you, Lou. You’re fuckin’- fuckin’-”

“Crack to your cock.”

He chuckles breathily, drops a little kiss to Louis’ nose and smiles, wide as his lips allow him, “best piece of arse in Britain.”

“Best _arse_ in Britain,” Louis corrects, a cute little entitled crease between his brows.

“That too, yeah.” Harry looks at him for another second and that’s exactly a second too long, because he blurts something more; “all I ever think about is whether you’re all right.”

Louis pets his cheek. “I’m all right, love.”

“Would you lie to me if you weren’t?”

“What do you mean?”

Harry opens his mouth to go on, but then stops himself. He isn’t even sure where he was going and he’s a hundred percent sure that wherever it was it wouldn’t be right for this moment. “Nothing. Nothing, I just- want you to be happy. Want you to be happy all the time.”

“I am, babe. I’m happy, I have you.”

Harry smiles. “Me too.”

They lie close for a while, kissing and whispering sweet nothings.

Then Harry pulls out and gets a cloth and cleans them up and comes back to bed and snuggles close and then they kiss and whisper again some more. And Harry thinks to himself, just before he falls asleep that night, that if life was just the two of them and this mattress, then life would be quite the wonderful little thing. 


	12. Chapter 12

**HARRY**

He hops down the stairs the following morning, Louis still lying sound asleep in his bed. In the kitchen, he finds Lucy, making herself a cup of tea.

“Where’s your German bloke?”

“Danish,” she mutters, taking out the tea-bag and tossing it in the bin, “and he left this morning for class.”

Harry grabs some necessities from the fridge and gets a pan out. “You gonna see him again or?”

“I don’t know,” she mutters, “I mean, he- he’s nice and all, but… I get the feeling that he makes Niall really uncomfortable. I don’t wanna disturb the house dynamic over some Swiss bloke.”

“I thought you said he was Danish.”

“Potatoe, kartoffel.”

“Wha’?”

She takes her tea and jumps up on the counter beside the stove where he’s making an omelette. “Anyway, you and Lou all right? Didn't see you two all evening.”

“Well,” Harry gives her a sly grin, “ya know.”

“I do- or, well, I mean, at least you two aren’t as loud about it as Ziam, but… and _fuck_ , those two fuck loudly. It’s like they _want_ the entire street to hear.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if they did. Well, Zayn anyway. Bit of a drama queen at times,” Harry makes eyes, “in the name of ‘his art’.”

She slaps him on the arm. “Hey, he’s a brilliant artist.”

“He is, he is, I’m not saying he isn’t.” Harry tries to flip the omelette and turns it into scrambled eggs instead. Oh, well. “But, uhm, yeah…”

“' _But, uhm, yeah_ ' what?” She nudges him in the shoulder. “What, Haz? What’s on your mind?”

Well. Loads of things. Mostly, the fact that, however lovely it was to be with Louis all of last night, he can’t help but feel like something’s still off. Like his reaction to Harry stepping one foot into his room when he wasn’t there was a little too strong. Like there’s been one too many ‘miscommunications’ happening as of late.

Basically, like he’s hiding something.

“Hm,” he mutters, “I don’t know.”

They’re still a team. He can’t go talking shit about Louis behind his back. They’re a team.

“Hey,” Lucy says then, “I’d like to think I’m your friend, Haz. You can talk to me if you need, you know. It’s healthy to get stuff off your chest once in a while. I know we haven’t know each other for long, but maybe that’s good. Maybe that makes it easier, for you to confide in me. I don’t know… am I talking total rubbish here?”

Harry sighs. She isn’t. She isn’t talking rubbish. He just doesn’t know how much rubbish he’s able to share without feeling guilty as hell afterwards. “Well, I’m, uhm,” he begins hesitantly, “I just… worry too much, I guess. About stuff and… things.”

“Stuff and things,” she echoes, “yeah, those two do tend to cause a lot of trouble.”

He gives a little chuckle. “Yeah, but- I’m not- I don’t know. I don’t know. I just... “ Well. He turns to look at her. “Right, you know how Lou and I were supposed to be moving in together? Room-wise?”

“Yeah?”

“Well… I feel like it’s been ages since we made that decision and he just keeps putting it off. And then I… then I, like, try and make specific times for us to get started on it - fix up Louis’ room and stuff - but then he bails on me. Like, every time. I don’t know. And then yesterday,” he cuts himself off, thinking maybe he’s said too much. He really doesn’t want to talk about Louis when he isn’t here.

But then Lucy smiles at him, eyes wide and curious, and urges him on; “' _then yesterday_ ', what?”

He sighs. “Then yesterday we… well, we were supposed to be doing the move. Again. But he wasn’t home from school yet and he wasn’t responding to my texts and… I don’t know, I just came by his room and I thought-”

“You went snooping?”

“No!” he exclaims, “no, I wouldn’t say I went ‘snooping’... per say. I just… Wanted to get started on his room. It’s a bit… messy, ya know? I couldn’t help it.”

“Right.”

“But then he came and pulled me out of there before I got to. Went all crazy on me. I don’t know. I don’t know. It just made me think, like… what the fuck, ya know? Like, why?”

She nods, looking pensive for a minute. “Right. Yeah.” She pauses, expecting him to say more, but he doesn’t. “- right. Right,” she says again, “well, ehm… maybe you wanna give him a bit of space? Make him come to you?”

Right. He could’ve told himself that. “Yeah… maybe.” He puts on a hopeful little smile. “Yeah, I know. You know, I just, I feel like I’ve been giving him-”

“Giving who?” Louis asks, sauntering into the room.

He’s fully dressed now, seemingly having been down to his own room and found himself something not half-dirty to slip on. His hair’s still a mess though and Harry can just make out the top bit of the bite-mark he made on his shoulder last night. He looks cute.

“Hungry?”

“No, I- I’ve gotta go to class.”

“Right.” He was sort of hoping - expecting - for Louis to skip his first class of the day so they could cuddle. But, that’s a stupid way to think. Louis shouldn’t be skipping out on classes just to spend mornings with Harry. He’ll have Harry every other hour of the day anyway.

He reaches a hand out for Louis’ shirt and pulls him in. Louis buries his face in his shirt,wraps his arms around him and gives him a quick squeeze. Then he make to pull out of it, but Harry grabs him for a kiss. He averts, dropping his chin so that Harry’s lips collide with the top of his head instead.

“What the fuck?”

“M’really late, babe,” Louis says, quickly disentangling himself from Harry’s arms and heading out.

And just like that, he’s gone again.

Harry turns to Lucy, agitated. “All right, come here,” he says, “I must have a breath-problem or something because this keeps happening.”

She jumps off the counter and steps in as he dips down and huffs his breath into her nose.

Just as they stand like that, her hands on his chest and one of his on her hip, so close one might mistake the moment for something it really isn’t, Niall comes barging in.

“All right, so it’s just _EVERYONE_ except for me?!”

Lucy stumbles backwards. “No, what? _No_!”

“She was just checking my breath, Niall,” Harry mutters, before turning back to her, “and how was it?”

“It was- s’fine, Harry, your breath is just fine, I- Niall, are you cross with me again now?”

“No. I’m not cross,” Niall mutters, opening the fridge and scanning it with hunched shoulders, “but that gap-toothed idiot of yours might be.”

“ _Niall_!”

 

*

 

Harry gives a long sigh, sinking further into the couch he’s been sitting in since he arrived home two hours ago. Once again, he’s waiting for Louis.

“It’s odd,” Lucy says, sitting on the couch across from him, scratching a dozy Niall’s scalp, “if he doesn’t even get off class later than you normally, then what the hell is he doing? He’s always home later than you, even if he says he comes home straight from school.”

“You’re right,” Harry says, but then, because Niall, Lucy, Liam and Zayn are all chilling in the room and he doesn’t like the idea of talking about Louis to the whole house when he isn’t here to defend himself, he quickly adds; “but, I mean, he’s mates with a lot of people in his study and he goes out with them a lot. I think they’re quite the pub-goers and, I mean, who am I to tell him not to go out with his friends? I’m not that kind of person, I’d hate it if he tried to control me like that.”

“Right, yeah, no, I agree, it’s better to trust someone and let them have their freedom, totally,” Lucy says, “but, I just… I thought you said he’d told you he’d come straight home and do the move with you?”

Right. Therein lies the problem. That’s the part Harry can’t really justify, whichever way he spins it. “Yeah,” he grunts, turning his gaze to the telly and sinking, if possible, even deeper down in the cushions, “but I guess he’s just an unreliable little son of a-”

The doorbell rings.

No one moves.

It rings again.

“All right, I guess I’ll go,” Liam sighs, pushing off the lounge-chair he was sitting in.

A moment later, he comes back with a weird look on his face.

“What?”

“Grace is at the door.”

Oh. Harry straightens up. “Is she-”

“Hi,” she says shyly, walking in from behind Liam. She walks with her shoulders a bit hunched, trying to make herself small, but her eyes roam the entire room, looking for someone. Someone in particular, who just so happens not to be home. In the end, she settles for Harry, giving him a little smile, “I just came to give you these back.”

She’s fishes a pair of headphones out of her purse.

Liam jumps up to her side. “Those are mine!”

“Oh, ehm, Harry borrowed me them a long while ago and I-”

“Because I borrowed them to Harry an even longer while ago!” Liam rips them out of her hands, shakes his head in disbelief and turns to leave, then stops halfway to the stairs and turns to Zayn. “Sorry. I genuinely thought you had them.”

“S’cool, mate.”

Liam wavers for a second, staring at him.

Zayn gets out of his seat. “Yeah, I could go for a quickie,” he says, as if answering a question, and then follows Liam up the stairs.

Harry turns back to Grace. “Well, thanks anyway. You really didn’t have to come all the way here just to give me them back, you could’ve just texted or something.”

She shrugs shoulder. “Well.”

Right. He knows what she means. She doesn’t have to say it.

He gets out of his seat. “Come on, let me make you a cup of tea.”

She follows him to the kitchen, resting back against the fridge as he fills the kettle. Harry casts a glance over the kitchen island. The others have returned to telly-watching and idle conversation. They aren’t being watched.

He flicks on the kettle and turns to Grace again. “How are you?”

“I’m good. I’m good.”

“That’s good.”

“You?”

“Yeah, I’m- I’m good too,” he mutters.

Harry scratches at his arm. The kettle gets noisier and noisier, but it still doesn’t quite drown out the awkward silence they suddenly find themselves standing in.

He considers asking about school or work or just whether she’s had a recent haircut, but before he gets to it, she says, lowly; “You know, you were always such a terrible liar, Harry.”

He lifts his gaze. She’s got her arms crossed over her chest, eyes studying him half-heartedly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said,” she says, “you were always such a terrible liar. And I was a good one. That’s why I stayed with you for too long. I lied to myself so well I didn’t believe it when you finally admitted you were cheating on me.”

He lets out a shaky breath. They only ever had one or two conversations about the topic before she left for good. Maybe it’s selfish, but he supposes he sort of liked it that way; at least then he wouldn’t have to be reminded of what a terrible person he’s been. “I’m sorry. You know I am.”

“I know you are, I can tell by the way that you say it. And that’s good because I know that you won’t ever do it again,” she says, lifting the crooks of her mouth a little, “but I don’t need you to tell me over and over. That wasn’t what I wanted just now. I just meant… well, I know when you are lying,” she explains, “and you were lying just now.”

The kettle clicks finished and, with great relief, he takes his eyes off of hers and turns to get them their cups. “When did I lie just now?”

“When you said you were good. You aren’t good. Not really.”

He puts the bags in their cups and fills them with boiling water. “What do you mean?”

“Harry. Come on.” She smiles at him when he turns, concern still clear in her eyes. “You’re worried about something. Is it Louis?”

He sighs. Isn't it always Louis? “You don’t want to hear about that.”

“I want to hear about Louis,” she says, “I want to know he’s all right. I know about,” she pauses for a second, just to gather her words, “I know about his father. His bio father. What happened with him.”

“Right.” Harry hands her her tea and takes a sip of his own, looking her over. She looks like she means well. “Well, it’s quite new. The thing with his dad. He hasn’t wanted to talk about it yet. I don't know how to, uhm… make him talk about it. Whether I even should.”

She gulps down a sip of her tea, smacks her lips and lets her gaze roll out towards the window. “Hm…” she hums, “maybe he doesn’t need to. I mean, he never cared that much for his father, did he? So maybe he doesn’t care enough to need to talk about it. I mean, I wouldn’t know, I haven’t spoken to him once since it happened.”

“No…” Harry taps his fingers to the mug, lost in thought for a moment. “But, I-” he starts, but then cuts himself off.

She moves her gaze back to him. “What?”

“Just…” Well. “I’m not sure whether… whether the thing with his father’s the entire issue. I mean, he was already acting… different than usual. Before he found out about his father passing.”

She frowns a little. “You mean, before the break?”

“No. No, recently. After the break. Before he found out about his father.”

She looks at him like he’s said something incomprehensible. After a few seconds, she asks; “what?”

“What?”

“After the break?”

“Yes.”

Her frown deepens. “But, what do you mean, ' _after the break, but before he found out about his father_ '?”

“Exactly that.”

She shifts weight, incredulous eyes still pinned to him. “But, Harry,” she says, slowly, “his father died just at the beginning of break.”

Now, Harry frowns. “No, Louis said he found out just a few weeks ago. I was there the day he got the news.”

“No,” she insists, “Harry. I know Lou’s family, I even spoke to them when it happened. Louis’ known about his father for ages.”

Harry puts his tea down. “But, like…” he says slowly, “but, then- what, so he just lied to me?”

“Well, I don’t know about that, Harry, but I’m just telling you what I _do_ know. Louis’ known about his dad since the start of break. There’s no way he didn’t know a few weeks ago.”

“So, he lied to me.”

“If he said he only found out about his dad a few weeks ago, then yes.”

“But why the fuck would he lie?”

“I don’t know, Harry. Is there any reason what so ever why he’d need to lie about his dad dying that day?”


	13. Chapter 13

**ZAYN**

“Zayn. Zayn, Zayn, Zayn, Zayn, Zayn,” Miss Bourne says, hands flying around her face, nearly whipping Zayn in his. He’s just given in his final painting for evaluation before she decides whether or not he gets the spot at the exhibit. Judging by the wild look in her eyes it might be going in the right direction. “Zayn,” she says again, once she’s finally calmed herself a little.  

“Miss Bourne.”

“Zayn.”

“Miss Bourne.”

“Zayn.”

“Miss Bou-”

“Enough small-talk,” she cuts him off, “you have it.”

“Have what?”

“ _It_ ,” she says, staring deep into his soul, “it, whatever ' _it_ ' is, you possess it. Also, you have ' _it_ ' as in, you have the spot. At the exhibit.”

He nearly jumps out of chair. “Are you fuckin’ serious?!”

“No, I’m fucking Dumbledore.”

“What?”

“You have it!” she exclaims, “the spot Zayn, you have it! Don’t look like such a mope or I’ll take it right away from you again!”

He jumps out of his chair. “I’m over the fuckin’ moon, Michelle.”

“ _Michelle_ ,” she echoes fondly, giving a little coquettish head-throw, “oh my, oh my, you really _are_ over the moon.”

“You can bet your sweet arse I am!”

“Now now, let’s not get carried away. Sit back down.”

He plops back down. “No, but, really, miss, I’m absolutely elated that you’ve picked me, I can’t even begin to tell you-”

“Yes yes,” she waves at him dismissively, “well, anyway, I’ll personally pick out the most suitable of your pieces for the exhibit and then I’ll notify you further via e-mail.”

He smiles, heart still pounding at his chest. “Wow. Yes. Thanks,” he breathes, “yes. Fuck, I want to kiss you right now.”

“I’m afraid you’re a little too old for me. I like them under twenty.”

“What?”

“What?”

“Wha-”

“Now, get out of here! Go tell your friends and whoever else you fraternise with that they must come to the exhibit! Piss off!”

 

*

 

The first person he sees when he arrives home is Liam. Liam, standing there in his brown plaid-boxers at three pm on a weekday, eating a slice of burnt toast. Liam, looking more beautiful than, well, anything, really.

Zayn runs forward and throws himself into his arms.

Liam stumbles backwards and hits the back of his head on the wall and slides down it. Zayn slides right with, landing nicely in his lap.

“What the hell, Zayn…” he groans, rubbing at the back of his head.

Zayn kisses his nose. “I’m just so happy,” he says, “I’ve got the spot, I’ve got new opportunities ahead and, now I see, it’s finally clear to me - Liam, for fuck’s sake, stop rubbing your head and look me in the eye when I’m about to say something important - and now I finally see; I’ve got the most perfect man right here at home.”

“You made me drop my toast.”

“You’d drop just about anything for me, wouldn’t you?” Zayn kisses him, gets burnt toast-crumbs on his mouth, wipes them off and smiles, “I love you.”

Liam cocks his head back against the wall, looking him over. “Love you too,” he says, the way he always says it; like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

And, really, it should be. “I’ve been acting insane,” Zayn says, “I’ve been holding grudges and I’ve been holding my hands up before my eyes so I couldn’t see what was right in front of me; you.”

“What d'you mean, you look at me all the time- well, mostly you glare, but-”

“Liam, shut the fuck up, you’re ruining the moment!” Zayn slaps him to snap him to attention. It had to be done. “So, I guess what I’m asking you is,” he says on a long breath, “will you be mine again?”

Liam shrugs a shoulder. “Yeah sure, why not?”

“Jesus, could you be any less romantic?”

“Sorry, sorry. Yes, I’ll be yours again. No, that doesn’t mean I’m not still mad that you made me drop my toast. And yes, you are squashing my balls the way you’re sitting on me right now. That romantic enough for you?”

“Just stop talking and kiss me already.”

 

*

 

 **HARRY**  

He reaches one end of the hall from the other for the millionth time since he came up here. Soon as Grace left, it was all he could do not to thunder-sprint up the stairs. Once he reached the first floor, he couldn’t go through with it, though; he couldn’t reach for the handle. So, instead he started pacing. He started walking back and forth, one straight line, one wall to the other and over again until he lost track of time.

His heart won’t stop racing, nor will his thoughts.

He’s so hurt. He’s so angry. He’s so confused. He’s so, so _fucking_ confused.

In the end, he does it. He isn’t sure what triggers it, whether he just gets motion-sick from the pacing or he gets just angry enough with every minute Louis still isn’t home, even though he fucking _should_ be, that it’s enough to give him the balls. He isn’t sure and he doesn’t need to be, because he doesn’t give a fuck right now.

He steps into Louis’ room.

What he finds isn’t what he expected. He isn’t even sure what he did expect, but he’s sure this isn’t it. Maybe it should’ve been, maybe he should’ve seen the signs, because he feels so fucking stupid now.

He opens the closet, looks behind a few coats; bottles. He pulls out every drawer in the dresser; bottles. He looks under the bed; bottles. He opens a sports bag, he lifts a few hoodies from the hamper, he looks in the first fucking drawer of the nightstand and it’s- bottles. Bottles. Empty bottles everywhere.

 

*

 

**NIALL**

“Yeah, but why? I’m just asking why? Why, what is it that I do wrong? What can I do to change that behaviour?”

Lucy groans. “You can’t ' _do_ ' anything differently, I just don’t see you that way.”

“And you see fuckin' _Gap Tooth_ that way?” Niall exclaims. Is it too much to ask just to be given a fucking chance?

“Niall, it’s different with him,” she sighs, “for one, we aren’t housemates.”

He gets that. He does. Don’t shit where you eat and all of that. But, come on. “Zayn and Liam are housemates and together. They’re doing all right.”

“Not really.”

“Harry and Louis are housemates and together and they’re doing all-”

The front door slams open. “‘ellooooooo!”

“Lou-eh!” Niall yells, “get in here!”

Louis comes sauntering into the living-room, looking happy and messy-haired as ever. “Hey, guys. Where’s H?”

“You and Harry are doing all right, aren’t you?” Niall asks, completely ignoring his question, “despite being housemates?”

“What do you mean, ' _despite being housemates_ '?”

Lucy sighs exasperatedly. “He’s trying to convince me to go out with him. He’s trying to draw some sort of sick comparison between you and Haz and me and him.”

“Right. Right, okay,” Louis shifts weight, “so, where’s Haz?”

“Think he said we was going up to your room,” Niall mutters.

Louis’ eyes blow wide. “ _What_?!”

“He said something like ' _I’m gonna go see what the fuck he’s hiding_ ' or something. I don’t know, mate.”

Louis drops his school-bag to the floor and thunder-sprints up the stairs.

Niall turns back to Lucy. “See what I said,” he says, “they’re housemates and they’re doing just fine.”

 

*

 

**HARRY**

He sits in the middle of the room, arms around his legs and nails between his teeth. He sits there, stiff and slack at the same time. Tense and absolutely deflated. Nervous and yet too tired to be.

He feels so stupid.

The door gets kicked open. “What the fuck are you doing?!” Louis screams.

Harry swallows thickly and looks up at him. He’s all over the place. He’s looking at Harry, then around the room, taking in every open drawer and unzipped bag, and then back at Harry, jittering. His brows are drawn tight, his jaw set hard forward and yet he looks like he’s seconds from falling apart.

“What is all of this?” Harry asks, voice nearly a whisper.

An incredulous noise falls from Louis’ throat. He throws an arm out, looks away and then back again and then makes the same noise once more. “I don’t- I-”

“Have you been drinking all of this? They’re nearly all empty, Louis.” Harry looks around at the state of things and then back at Louis again, feeling so sad and stupid and guilty for confronting Louis about it, even though he really fucking shouldn’t. “Did you drink all of this booze on your own?”

“No, I-” Louis throws a hand through his hair, then turns, closes the bedroom door and turns again, leaning back against it. “‘Course I didn’t drink all of this on me own, baby,” he says, softer, “you know me. I’m not a heavy drinker.”

But, however stupid Harry is, he isn’t _that_ fucking daft. “Don’t call me ' _baby_ ' when you lie to me. It doesn’t make me believe you one bit more.”

Louis’ lips click apart.

Harry drops his gaze to his own knees. “I can’t understand. I just- I can’t understand.” He lifts his head again, looking to Louis for something, _anything_ , any sort of explanation that makes his mind go somewhere else but where it went the second he saw the bottles. “Please make me understand, Lou.”

Louis sucks his bottom lip in, looking everywhere in the room but at Harry. “I don’t-” he manages after a bit, “I don’t know how-” his voice cracks over, “I just, ehm…” The crooks of his mouth start to twitch, bop up and down and Harry can’t take it anymore.

“Baby, come here,” he hears himself say, “I’m not mad you. I just- I just want to understand.”

Louis looks back at him, brows tight and cheeks bitten in between his teeth. Slowly, he lets himself slide down the door until he’s on the floor like Harry. He doesn’t come any closer. He draws his knees up under his chin and stays like that.

“Have you been drinking all of this on your own, Lou?” Harry asks again, after a minute or so of silence, “I won’t get mad. I’m just asking.”

Louis drops his forehead to his knee. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“I know you don’t,” Harry says softly. He hates this. He wants to crawl across the carpet and pull Louis close and not make him answer to anything ever again. But, that's not what you do. That’s not what you do, when you _really_ care. “But I think you need to. I want to know how to help you feel better.”

Louis lets out a raggedy breath. “I don’t know how to…”

“I’ll wait until you do,” Harry says, “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

Louis buries into his own arms. He doesn’t speak again for a long while. Harry watches him intermittently, dragging his fingers through his hair over and over. After a while, his shoulders begin to shake. It’s soft and soundless, but it’s there and it’s impossible to watch without wanting to reach out and hold him.

“Baby, don’t cry,” Harry breathes, “please don’t cry.”

Louis doesn’t lift his head from between his shaking shoulders. A quiet sob emerges from where his mouth is muffled at his knees and it’s a physical fight not to come any closer.

Harry stifles himself, though. He isn’t sure why, but he just feels that he should. Feels that making this moment physical might be an escape, might make Louis think he doesn't need to talk any more.

So, Harry sits still and watches Louis.

After a while, he seems to have calmed himself down a little. He lifts his head out of his arms, eyes heartbreakingly red and puffy. His lips are pressed together in a thin line, maybe to fight the wobbling. “It’s not, ehm,” he tries, voice gone raspy and weak, “it’s not… because I meant for it to get this bad.”

Harry lets out a shaky breath. “Right. Okay, so- so when have you been drinking all of this?”

“I don’t-” he scratches at his own lip, shaking his head in agitation, “I don’t know, just- sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

He meets Harry’s gaze, but only for a second before he flicks his own down again. “When… in the nights and stuff,” he mutters, “and like, the bottles just kind of… accumulated quickly.”

“You- you’ve been drinking in the nights?” Harry asks. He’s staring directly at Louis, hoping he’ll lift his chin again, hoping to get some semblance of connection between them, but he doesn’t. His own throat's clogged up too, but he holds it back because they can’t both be crying. This isn’t about him. “You’ve been drinking all of this in the nights, Lou?”

He shrugs a shoulder, then pulls out his sleeve and wipes at his mouth, his nose and his eyes. “I just- it’s mostly from parties and stuff. Or having gone out. It’s not- it’s not all mine or anything.”

“It’s not all yours?” Harry looks around himself. He’d really, _really_ like to believe that that were true. To think that one little Louis could drink all of this on his own. It makes his stomach hurt just thinking about it. “What, so who’s been drinking with you?”

“Just…” he throws a hand out, “mates from class and stuff.”

“Mates from class?”

He nods.

“So, you and your mates from class drank all of this together, but then… but, like, babe, that makes no sense,” he says softly, “I’m not attacking you or anything, but- why would all the bottles be here? If it were at the pub with your mates from class you wouldn’t have accumulated all of these bottles, would you?”

He shrugs a shoulder again, before dropping his forehead to his knee and dragging his stiff fingers through his hair.

“Do you really just drink in the night?” Harry forces himself to ask. “'Cause- 'cause I think you don’t. I think that’s a lie, Louis. I think that, maybe, you drink in the day-time too and you don’t want to say that because you think that’ll make it seem worse.”

Louis lifts his head. “ _No_ ,” he exclaims, “no, I- no, ‘course I haven’t.”  

“All right,” Harry says slowly, “so you don’t drink in the day-time?”

“No!”

Harry nods, the concerned frown etched on his face still deepening. “Okay,” he says, “so can I have a kiss?”

Louis’ eyes go wide. “What?”

“Can I have a kiss, then?”

“What, I-” he begins to scoot backwards against the door when Harry starts to crawl closer, “no, Harry, I’m not in the mood-”

Harry fights the part of him that always wants to let Louis have things his way, crawling closer and closer. Louis throws himself back against the door and kicks out at him. Harry grabs him by the ankles and yanks him so he lands on his back. He tries to flip onto his stomach, but Harry grabs him by both arms and straddles him. Takes him roughly by the jaw and dips down.

The moment their lips brush, he smells it. Tastes it.

“Right,” he sighs, not the least bit happy about being right in his suspicions. Mostly, it just makes him want to cry. “Fuck.”

Louis looks up at him, wide-eyed and nervous. He’s stopped trying to fight Harry off now, lying slack in his arms, waiting for him to speak.

“So that’s why you haven’t wanted to kiss me sometimes, is it?” Harry asks, tracing Louis’ lips with the pad of his thumb, “when you’ve had a drink when you weren’t supposed to?”

Louis closes his eyes.

“Fuck, Louis.” Harry watches him for another second, then rolls off and onto his back. “So you’ve been drinking in the mornings, then. Before school.”

It’s like he’s suddenly snapped to attention and now, thinking back, it all makes so much sense; all the times Louis ducked out of kisses, not wanting Harry to smell his breath. When he rolled onto his stomach and then ran out of the room. When he got so easily defensive, when his stories didn’t match up, when he sat in the room and drank that bottle of vodka on his own.

“That’s why you said your dad died a few weeks ago, isn’t it?” Harry says, the moment he connects those dots too, “because that’d be easier to say than to have to explain why you were just drinking in your room randomly in the middle of the day.”

Louis covers his face with his hands.

“And you- you haven’t wanted to move into my room because then you wouldn’t be able to hide the bottles or the drinking.” Harry drags a clammy hand down his own face. “Fuck, Louis. How long has this been going on?”

Louis moves his hands off his face with a sniffling noise. “I don’t know,” he half-whispers, “since… with me dad and stuff.”

“You started drinking after your dad died? In the beginning of break?” Harry shifts onto his side. Louis lies on his back still, gaze pinned stiffly to the ceiling. “But you- I don’t understand why that would trigger this sort of thing in you.”

Louis gives a dry snort. “Well,” he breathes, “I guess it’s just part of me genetics, innit? Being a drunk.”

“That's not fucking funny.”

He opens his eyes, looking at the ceiling first and then, slowly, rolling his gaze over to Harry. “I’m sorry.”

Harry closes his own eyes, laying his forehead down on Louis’. “Don’t apologise, sweetheart,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to Louis’ lips before he pulls back again, “just please explain to me. What the hell is going on with you?”

“I don’t know,” Louis says weakly, one hand curling around the back of Harry’s neck, “I don’t- I just- I mean, I… I’ve always liked a good party.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“No, and- but, I don’t know. When me dad died I just, sort of…” he pauses, shifting onto his side to look at Harry, “you know, he’d been trying to contact me. He’d been trying to get to me for, like… years. I never answered him,” he picks at the front of Harry’s shirt, shaking his head at himself before he goes on, “but, you know, I always felt a little bit shit about it. Not because- I know I don’t owe him shit or anything, but… I just felt like it was something I had to do before it was too late. Just see him again, just, you know… see my dad one last time.”

“Oh, Lou.”

Louis rolls his glassy eyes at himself, shaking his head again. “No, it’s- it was just a bit of a shock, I suppose. When, suddenly, he was just dead, just gone. I mean, he’d called me just three weeks before that and I’d been so adamant that I’d call him back, but I just… just kept putting it off and then, one day, it was too late. I was out of time,” he gives a dry little snort, “got myself so fuckin’ pissed before his funeral that I passed out at home and missed out on it.”

He pulls on Harry’s shirt again and Harry takes his fingers gently, wrapping them up in his own hand and kissing his knuckles. Louis moves it from Harry’s lips and around his neck instead, pulling him in, their foreheads pressing close.

Harry nuzzles their noses together and wraps an arm around his waist. “And then you just kept drinking?”

“I mean, I- it sounds so terrible, I don’t want to make it seem worse than it is.”

“Baby, look around yourself. I don’t think leaving anything up to the imagination really helps.”

Louis gives a little chuckle. “No… I suppose not.”

“So… did something else happen or?”

Louis sighs exasperatedly, rolling back onto his back. “See, this is exactly the issue,” he says, “there _should_ be a better reason, shouldn’t there? I shouldn’t be this pathetic little bitch over someone I don’t even really miss. There are people with all sorts of mental illnesses or people who’ve had terrible shit done to them and I’m just- I’m just some fuckin’ day-drinking loser.”

“You’re not a loser.” Harry takes him by the jaw and twists it to look him in the eye. “You are not a loser. Whether you have a million reasons in the world or none at all, you’re not a fucking loser. Look at you, baby, you’ve torn yourself to pieces over this. If you were a loser, you wouldn’t even give a shit.”

Louis gives a soft little hum of a chuckle. “That’s nice of you to say,” he says, and he doesn’t sound very convinced, but at least it’s something. At least it makes him elaborate; “it started with parties. It was summer break, you know? You can always find a party, every night of the week there’s some excuse to get pissed,” he licks over his dried out lips and shrugs a shoulder, “and then there’s- then, there’s booze left over in the mornings. If you held the party yourself or- or, you can just nick some from a stranger if you passed out at their house the night before. I know it sounds horrible, but- I don’t know when it went from… looking forward to a party with my mates in the evening to… waiting anxiously for it to get late enough that nobody would frown at your for staring the pre-drinking.”

His chest feels tight, seeing Louis’ eyes start to well up again, his voice going raspy. “Right.”

“At some point, I just-” he wipes angrily at his eyes and gives a sharp sniffle, “I just stopped giving a fuck.”

“Well, you were still trying to hide it.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I-” he gives an exasperated little sound and turns to meet Harry’s eyes again, a self-deprecating little smile on face, “I still give a fuck about you.”

Harry sucks in a hiccupy breath.

Louis looks away again, his eyes fluttering closed. “S’why I never called during break or anything. By the time you were done with your vacations with both your parents, I was- I’d gone from sometimes wanting a drink, to _always_ to wanking a drink, to,” he swallows, “to always _needing_ a drink.”

“Oh, Lou,” Harry says, and it comes out like a whimper and he doesn’t care because this isn’t about him or how he comes off. “Oh, I- I hate that you think I’d hold any of this against you.”

“I know you wouldn’t, Haz.” He smiles and wipes at Harry’s eyes, which must’ve gone damp again too without him noticing, “logically, I know you wouldn’t. It’s just- I’m not like you. I’m so… _fucking_ … selfish.”

“No, you-”

“And I kind of like that,” Louis interrupts, “I know that sounds terrible, but- I’m so selfish and I- want to keep being selfish, in some ways. I like being that. And I- I want you to be selfish too. I don’t want you to sacrifice so much for me. I don’t want you to worry all the time or make me fucking breakfast in bed when I’m the one who fucked up or- sit around and have your life fucked up just because I’m fucking mine up, you know? I don’t think that’s really selfless, I think that’s just masochistic, Haz.”

Harry stares at him incredulously. His lips part, but nothing but a stuttering throat-noise comes out.

Eventually, he manages to find half a voice. “No.” He shakes his head and sits up. “No. I know you think that’s what you want. You want to turn this around on me and tell me I just worry too much, I just care too much, it’s not my responsibility to care.”

“Well, it isn’t your responsibility to take care of me if _I’ve_ fucked up, I’m a grown man.”

But that’s- that’s so _fucking_ unfair. “Look around yourself, Louis!” he screams, throwing an arm out at the bottles, the blinds that’ve been pulled down for weeks on end, the rotting food on plates and the half-drunken tea-mugs, probably spiked with fucking vodka, growing layers of mildew. “It’s not my fucking responsibility to take care of you, but you can’t do it yourself, so I fucking _have_ to!”

He turns, looking back at Louis with wild eyes, a thick lump in his throat. Louis lies at the floor still, staring at him in shock, his chest heaving like crazy. “You think I _want_ to sit around every afternoon, not getting where the fuck you go after school? You think I _enjoy_ spending my Friday nights at home, not knowing where the fuck you are or with who and whether you’ll hurt yourself?”

He pauses, panting for air. Louis still doesn’t speak and Harry doesn’t give him much of a chance before he pummels on; “You want to be selfish and I think you should be, as should I, we’re young, of course we should. But you can’t have me half-ways.” He wipes the heels of his hands at his eyes, taking the worst of the wet away, “you can’t come and tell me you love me and you want me and then expect me not to give a shit when you don’t take proper care of yourself. That’s not being young and cutely selfish, Louis,” he yells, “you know what that is? That’s treating me like I’m nothing but a fuckin’ blow-up doll.”

“I don’t see you that way, I just don’t want you to feel like you have to mother me when I-”

“No,” Harry cuts through, because he’s hurt and he’s frustrated and he’s feeling guilty, even now, even right in this moment, because he doesn’t ever want to yell at Louis, but it’s- “it’s bullshit,” he says, sniffing and shaking his head, “it’s not that you don’t want me to worry too much. It’s not that you want me to be young and selfish. It’s not that you want to be able to take care of yourself, because if you really knew how to, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.” He shakes his head again, “what it is, is you wanting me to back off so you can keep drinking. And… and it’s not even you talking, baby. It’s the alcohol. It’s ‘cause you’re addicted to it. You said it yourself; you always need it.”

“What, are you telling me I’m a full-blown alcoholic now?” Louis hisses, sitting up suddenly, “mate, I’ve had a rough couple months, chill out.”

“I’m not telling you you are anything in particular, I’m just saying you need to stop drinking this much,” Harry says, forcing his voice to steady down because if Louis’ on the brink of yelling, he can’t be yelling too, “what did you want to get out of this conversation? Me telling you I feel bad for you and you promising you’ll stop and then you coming home drunk in two days again? You’ve got to get proper help. You’ve got to go to your doctor or to some of those AA-things where-”

“Right, okay, get the fuck out.”

Harry’s head snaps round to look at him again. “What?”

“Get the fuck out.” Louis shoves at him. “Get out.”

“Babe, you-”

“Get the fuck out, you clearly don’t trust me enough to give me a chance to turn this around myself. Get the fuck out. Out.”

The lump in Harry’s throat moves upward, the back of his eyes beginning to prickle again and he starts to feel desperate, a pit of anxiety growing in his gut. He wants to use his weight, use his size and just grab Louis by the wrists, by the body, by the throat and overpower him. Wants to tell him not to be so fucking stubborn, wants to slap him just to get through his alcohol-fogged head. If he were a lesser man, he would, but he isn't and that's just so _fucking_ frustration sometimes.

“I didn’t say _anything_ wrong,” he screams, and his voice comes out sobby, like a little child feeling unfairly treated, but he just can't help it. Louis starts to punch at his arms, shove at him, kick at him. “No, I don’t want to leave, I didn’t say anything wrong, I don’t want to leave you alone now, Louis, please-”

One of Louis’ fists hits him in the face.

For a second, it’s like time stands still, their eyes blown wide and locked on each other.

Then it starts to hurt. Harry clutches his nose and crumbles in on himself, blood beginning to seep from between his fingers.

Suddenly, Louis’ hands are all over him. “Oh no, oh fuck, oh baby, I didn’t mean to-”

“What the hell is going on in there?” someone shouts from the other side of the door. From the sounds of it, Liam. “You guys all right?” he asks, opening the door.

He steps inside the room and then goes a bit quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i know, it's beginning to not look like a coincident that harry has been punched at least once in every fic so far, but i swear it is... sorry, im a sick person.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you've been skipping to the Harry-pov throughout the fic, i think you might want to just have a look at the Zayn pov in this particular chapter, just because they're describing some of larry's storyline too. :)

**ZAYN**

It’s quiet in the car. Zayn was in the middle of sketching up the little wrinkles of Liam’s arsehole for his next masterpiece when Louis came storming down into his cellar and screamed for him to drive him to the emergency room. Zayn couldn’t get much out of him, other than that he’d apparently been drinking - which Zayn couldn’t quite understand since it was five pm on a weekday, but whatever - and that Liam was driving Harry and they needed to follow.

When he asked why the hell Louis didn’t cram his pert little arse into Liam’s car with them, Louis just told him to ' _shut the fuck up and drive_ '.”

They arrive at the emergency room when it’s pissing rain out. There must be a lot of four-year-old’s with Lego’s up their noses because it’s something near impossible to find a spot. Louis ends up making Zayn drop him off at the entrance so he can run in. When Zayn’s finally managed to find a spot and run across the lot with a half-broken canvas above his head to shield himself from the rain, Louis is just sitting in a red plastic-chair, chin in his hands, staring into thin air.

“Didn’t have to jump out like a fuckin’ action-hero, now, did we?” Zayn mutters. Louis doesn’t even look up.

Zayn takes a seat beside him, the chair awfully uncomfortable. He’s about to complain when he looks up and sees a kid with an entire pencil through his hand. Right. He supposes he shouldn’t complain.

“Hi, guys,” someone says, placing a big hand on Zayn’s shoulder.

It’s Liam, smiling down at him. He hands them each a cup of coffee and sits down, links an arm around Zayn’s shoulders and pecking him on the cheek. “Hi, darling.”

“Hi.”

“How’s Harry?” Louis asks, shifting so steaming hot coffee splashes over his hand, but he doesn’t even seem to notice. Jesus.

“I’m afraid they’re going to have to amputate his entire head.”

Louis groans and buries into his arms, feet tripping restlessly against the linoleum floors.

“Seriously, Liam, _sometimes_ -” Zayn shakes his head in exasperation.

Liam just chuckles and gives his shoulder a squeeze.

“Oh, by the way, babe, my mum’s been asking whether you’re coming up to my grandparents during fall break. You know, we always go up there, you were with last year. Just, ya know, play some cards, watch some good movies, cook some good food, family-time, ya know?”

“Right.” Zayn nods. “Right, yeah.”

“Oh, and also, Nicola’s been asking whether you’re coming to the christening. The christening, Zayn, you know they had a little son, you- Zayn. Zayn, are you there?”

But suddenly, Zayn finds himself staring into thin air. It all just came crashing down on him. The complete and utter… mundanity.

 

*

 

**NIALL**

The others have apparently all followed Harry to the emergency room - something about an accidental punch in the nose, don’t ask him why four people had to go with a grown man over that. Maybe Harry was crying, that does seem like something he’d do. Anyway, Niall really doesn’t mind because now, he and Lucy are home alone together.

And the gap-toothed Norwegian isn’t even here to cock-block.

“Where’s your stupid gap-toothed cock-blocking Norwegian?” Niall asks her, ever so casually, as they’re cooking up an inhumane amount of spaghetti bolognese. It was Lucy’s idea - the loving angel that she is - for them to have something ready once the rest of the housemates arrived home. Perhaps that’s why Niall feels no guilt in sitting on the counter, chewing on uncooked spaghetti’ while she does all the work.

“Who, Frederik? Why, who’s asking?”

“Me,” Niall says, “I’m asking. That’s why I asked.”

She chuckles. For some reason, she must think he was joking or some shite, because she doesn’t say anything more.

He pokes her in the shoulder-fat with the end of a hard spaghetti.

“Ow!” she jumps and rubs her shoulder, “why’d you do that, babe?”

Babe. The first time she called him this, he was elated. He thought; I’m getting closer. I’m half-way in. But, now he’s realised, after extensive internet-research and personal experience, that a girl referring to you as ' _babe_ ', ' _darling_ ' or ' _sweetheart_ ' without ever having had your cock in her mouth yet, is _not_ a good sign.

“I’m not your babe,” he says, bitterly, “Frederin’s your babe.”

She sighs exasperatedly. “Niall, ' _Frederin_ 's not even a bloody name, if you’re gonna pretend you’ve forgotten his name, couldn’t you at least put in the effort to say Frank or something?”

“What?”

She sighs again. “Nevermind-  if you _must_ know, I’ve broken it off with Frederik. I ended it just the other day.”

“Well, then,” he slaps on a wide, charming grin, “that means you’re singleeee.”

“It does.” She looks at him firmly for a few seconds. “I does, Niall,” she says again, “and you know why? Because I felt uncomfortable bringing him here and I felt uncomfortable even dating him in general. Because of you.”

His smile widens. “Me?”

“Yes.” She doesn’t look quite as excited as him. “Yes, because you’re being so- so- I don’t know, you’re doing your little flirty-things, but then you take them too far. I mean, in the beginning I thought it was fun, it was just banter, you actually made me feel really at home here. But now, after the Frederik thing and after you’ve begun nagging be so much I’m starting to think… that you don’t even really care about me. That all you’re really trying to do is… fuck me.”

He blinks. “Well, yes. I’m tryin’ to fuck ya.” How the _hell_ has that not been abundantly clear all throughout? “‘Course I’m tryin’ to fuck ya.”

She looks at him incredulously. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. How the fuck have I not been serious about that yet?”

Her mouth drops open. The pasta boils over. “ _Shit_ -” she pushes it back. “Fuck.”

“Let me help ya-”

“No, just-” she clutches her own forehead with one hand, waving him off with the other, “just- keep seated, I’ve got it.”

He shifts back in his seat, feeling a little uncomfortable suddenly. What to say now? He considers, for an insane second, to ask her whether her period’s coming up.

Luckily, she speaks before he makes that terrible mistake; “you know, I actually thought,” she says, looking at him sadly, “I _actually_ thought you liked me. As a friend. I thought our banter was- I actually thought we were friends.”

But, what- “how did this get this- this fuckin’- moody all of the sudden?” he exclaims, “‘course we’re friends, Luce, I-”

“No,” she shakes her head again, “no. If you were really my friend you’d care enough about me to back off when I told you you made me uncomfortable. You wouldn’t have been so rude to someone I liked enough to bring home.”

“Right, all right, is this about Gap Tooth-”

She slaps the counter. “ _Fuck’s_ sake, Niall. No, of course it’s not about fuckin’ Gap Tooth, if you- if you can’t see where I’m coming from then fucking forget it.” She takes the bolognese off the stove and then turns and marches out of the kitchen. “This is exactly why I shouldn't have moved in here.”

Blimey.

 

*

 

**ZAYN**

“But, why would he fall flat on his own nose?” Zayn asks.

He’s been trying to pry a somewhat coherent explanation out of Louis for ten minutes now. Liam’s sitting back in his chair, determinedly not participating in the conversation. When Zayn asked him why the hell he drove Harry here, but couldn’t bring Louis along, Liam just muttered something along the lines of ' _Harry didn’t want_ '. When Zayn then turned around again and asked Louis what Liam meant by that, Louis replied ' _fuck off Zayn_ '.

“I don’t know, Zayn, why would you ask me the same questions over and over when you know I’m not going to answer?” Louis hisses this time.

Zayn sighs, sinking back in his chair.

Liam puts a hand on his thigh and gives it a little squeeze. It isn’t the sexy kind, nor the sexily violent. It’s the kind of thigh-squeeze you might get from your dad in the car while he plays some corny country-rock car-song. It’s so soul-drainingly domestic.

Zayn rolls his head against the backrest of his chair and meets Liam’s gaze. “Imagine if that were us, huh?” he says dreamily, “what’d you do if I were in the emergency room? Would you burst through the doors with a hundred nurses running after you, trying to hold you back?”

“What?”

“Or would you bite your nails until you had no more nail and then bite on your fingertips until you bled so much you ended up in a hospital-bed beside me?”

Liam frowns. “What the hell are you talking about? - Hospital-bed,” he snort-laughs, “babe, he’s just hurt his nose. If that were you, you’d have probably been home already, looking up plastic-surgeons.”

He laughs.

Zayn does not.

Louis jumps out of his seat. “- Harry!”

From the other end of the room, with a bandage over his nose and a bottle of pills in one hand, comes Harry.

“How are you?” Louis exclaims the second he’s within earshot, voice gone overly soft suddenly, “it’s not broken, is it?”

Harry shoulder-shoves past him, not slowing for a second. “Course it’s fuckin’ broken.”

Zayn and Liam hurry to pick up everyone's coats and bags as Harry marches for the exits and Louis runs after him desperately.

“Jesus,” Liam says, as he and Zayn watch Louis try to touch Harry’s arm and get shrugged off so hard he nearly falls onto his bum, “reckon Lou must’ve punched him or something.”

“Yeah,” Zayn agrees, tilting his head onto Liam’s shoulder, “imagine if you’d been so emotional with me that you punched me. Wouldn’t that be something, baby?”

Liam groans.


	15. Chapter 15

**NIALL**

A green and blue and black-eyeshadowed waitress hands him a thumb-sized sandwich and a half-empty glass of champagne. He swallows the sandwich in one go and beckons her back with her little trey, but she sticks her nose in the sky and pretends she doesn’t see him.

“Christ,” he says, chugging the majority of his champagne and turning to Harry, who’s staring at a painting of a bird eating a cat whilst itself being eating by a worm, “when did art go from wanting to give someone something nice to look at to just trying to outdo each other in grossness?”

Harry doesn’t say anything. Niall glances at him. He took the bandage off his nose just the other day. He doesn’t look like Owen Wilson now, to Niall’s slight dismay, he looks exactly as stupidly fit as he did before, save for a little bruise over the bridge of his nose. And, well- the fact that he’s got a permanent scowl on his face now.

Niall still isn’t quite sure what happened that night when Harry had to go to the emergency room, but afterwards there was a night of fighting in the attic and then a day when everyone came home from school and found Louis’ room emptied, the only thing left a note about going back to Donny for a while. That’s a couple weeks ago.

To be completely honest, Niall’s been too caught up in his own awkwardness to make inquiries about Larry.

Lucy hasn’t spoken to him much since the night of their row. Well, she probably wouldn’t call it a row, but it felt like it to him. It felt like she’d been thinking nasty things about him for a while and finally let them spill. He still can’t quite grasp what the hell happened to them. They were endgame, he thought.

And then of course there’s Ziam. Fucking phonies.

They’re standing at the other end of the exhibit, around the paintings that belong to Zayn, small-talking to a woman with a purple Mohawk and a man’s suit on. Liam’s dressed up nice and he’s got a hand on the small of Zayn’s back and chuckles politely whenever someone says something ‘funny’, but Niall hasn’t missed the amount of champagne he’s chugged since he saw Zayn’s entire show-collection.

It isn’t that his pieces aren’t good. They’re good. They’re beautifully painted, actually. Very true to life.

It’s just that they’re, well, porn. Graphic, close-up, explicitly sketched paintings of Liam. There’s the one where he’s naked and touching himself. There's one where he’s naked and touching himself and crying. There’s the one where he’s naked and touching himself and crying and screaming. And, then of course, there's one where he’s naked and touching himself and crying and screaming _and_ sucking Zayn’s cock. Find the common denominator.

Anyway, at least Liam manages to force a fake smile, as opposed to Hazlan.

“Hazlan, pull that mouth upwards a bit, would ya?” Niall tries. Harry just grunts. "D'you need me to pull out the fish-hooks and do it meself or-" 

"Leave him be," someone says. "If he wants to be a bit by himself, let him."

It's Lucy, coming up to Niall's side. In the split-second that he turns to look at her, Harry disappears round a corner.

And Niall's left alone in the land of tense silence.

"So... see anything you might like two buy?" Niall asks her, because the mood can't possibly get anymore awkward between them so he might as well try. If he fucks up, then so be it.

She doesn't quite smile, but there's a little upward tug on one side of her mouth. He's half-way in. "I don't know," she mutters, "maybe that close-up one of Liam's ball-sack."

Niall laughs. Apparently that's not permitted at a fancy-schmancy art exhibit because he receives several outraged looks. That, or these hipsters have mistaken him for a piece of exquisite art.

Either way, he calms down a little and turns back to Lucy and blurts; "why are you and I so shitty at the moment?"

She frowns. "What do you mean, shitty?"

"Ya know what I mean. Not talking and shit."

She gets what he means now, but it doesn't seem to make her one bit less frowny. "I don't know, Niall. You hurt my feelings."

"What can I do to change that?"

"I don't know."

She turns to stroll the exhibit some more and he follows.  

"Seriously, I'll do anything you tell me," he says, because it's true and he's simultaneously frustrated and addicted to the way he never seems to be able to figure her out, "I have no idea what you want or what you're thinking, but if you tell me what it is or what you want, I'll do it. I swear, I literally have _no_ sense of shame. I'll do it." 

She glances at him skeptically. After a second or so, she can't keep it up and her face breaks into a little grin. "Niall, stop it," she chuckles, "I don't want you to _do_ anything. I just... I thought you and I were friends and stuff. And then, suddenly, you were all like- bitter. I don't know, it just took me aback because I- I liked Frederik, at the time, and even if I hadn't, it was sort of... disrespectful, you know? That you couldn't take the rejection and just back off and be my friend." 

Right. Ouch. "Right." 

"But- it's sweet of you to care enough to come to me." 

"Well. I can be really sweet. I can be, like, _only_ sweet from now on. If that's what ya want, then that's what I'll be."

She chuckles again, shaking her head at him. "Just be yourself, that's who I like to hang around with."

"I like to hang around with you too, Luce." He keeps his gaze firm, because he actually does mean it, however much he does naturally want to break into a huge grin whenever she looks at him. "If you just wanna be friends, I'll just be your friend. I get something out of- just being around ya too, you know. I like your vibe." 

Her gaze softens. "I like your vibe, too."

"Great." He punches her in the shoulder. "Mate." 

She laughs. "Mate." 

"You're actually one of my best mates at the moment," he tells her. He isn't sure why, but he feels like it's true. She's the mate that makes him smile the most, anyway. Makes his tummy feel all warm and fuzzy. That's got to be a best mate, if they make you feel that good just smiling at you.

"You're one of my best mates too," she says. 

He nods. Punches her in the shoulder again. Turns to look at a painting of a used tampon. 

"- with an arse that won't quit." 

He receives a smack to his bum. 

He spins around. " _What_ just happened?" 

Lucy gives a demure little smile, hands folded at her stomach, and shrugs a shoulder. "Nothing." 

"Did you just smack my arse?" 

"Guess I just suddenly saw you differently." 

"What, from the backside?" 

She shrugs again, before she turns and walks away, not forgetting to throw a last smile over her shoulder. 

Soon. 

 

*

 

**ZAYN**

He says goodbye to the other artists at the end of the evening, while Liam goes out back for a chat with Harry, who's been mopey all evening.

This evening was supposed to be the night of his life. This evening was supposed to be an explosion of culture, praise and opportunity. And praise. It was supposed to be all about showing off his work and his new jeans and his beautiful boyfriend. It was one of those evenings that one has so high expectations for that there's zero chance the reality will ever live up to any of them.

And yet. It did. 

He spoke to so many other artists, so many wannabe-artists, asking for his advice, and even a possible buyer (an old man with a comb-over who wanted to buy the one of Liam touching himself while crying). And, Liam seemed all right too. Looked lovely in his outfit tonight. 

Zayn tells him as much when they're strolling home after the exhibit, hand in hand. Harry went home in a taxi with Niall and Lucy, apparently, and now he and Liam get to have a quality moment to themselves. 

"Thanks," Liam says, squeezing his hand, "you looked really good too. I'm so proud of you for all that you've done. - Even if it's-" he cuts himself off, but it's too late. 

"Even if it's what?" Liam rolls his eyes and doesn't reply. Zayn rips his hand out of Liam's. "Even if it's _what_ , Liam?" 

Liam sighs exasperatedly. "I'm not replying if you're just looking for a fight." 

"Why would I be looking for a fight, I don't-" 

"Because you're _always_ looking for a fucking fight, Zayn," Liam says, words hard, but voice as calm as always. 

Zayn huffs. "Well, excuse me for having some self-respect and standing up for myself and my work." 

"Okay, fuck it," Liam snaps, "even if it's _porn-drawings of me_ , was what I was gonna say. Porn-drawings of me, Zayn. That's what your work is. It's really well painted, and- and you've been very nice about my face and _very_ generous about my nether regions, and- you're a brilliant painter. You are. But, the fact is; it's graphic porn-art of me." 

But that's just so _fucking_ offensive. "You know, I _can_ paint without needing you-" 

"I know you can, but then why don't you?" Liam looks at him and whatever he finds makes him cut his gaze away and throw a hand out with a sigh. "See, now you're getting all worked up. Now you've got your fight, now you wanna blow up on me, because you just love it. You just love it, the drama, you thrive on it." 

A throaty sound drops from Zayn's lips, but he doesn't speak. With all he has in him, he stifles himself and turns his gaze straight forward again.

"Did you have a good time, anyway?" he says, after moments and moments of preparing his voice to sound soft and casual. He's moderately successful. "Tonight?" 

"Yes, it was nice, thanks," Liam says, clearly straining to play along too. He grabs for Zayn's hand and they fumble awkwardly to fit them properly together again. "Liked those little sandwiches." 

"Yeah, they were good." 

"Might want to try and make them myself sometime. Maybe at the christening, I could suggest it to Nicola." 

"Mhm." 

The conversation dies and they don't speak for the entire half an hour it takes for them to walk home. 

When they reach the end of the garden path, they both stop before the front door, neither reaching for the handle. Zayn turns and leans back against the wall beside it. Liam sticks his thumbs in his pockets and gives a soft little closed-mouthed smile. 

"So," Zayn says. 

"So," Liam replies. 

"We're over, aren't we?" 

"Think we have been for longer than we care to admit." 

Zayn drops his gaze, nodding. For the first time in so long he can't even remember, he stands in a moment with Liam that feels real. Feels like something to be taken seriously. "For whatever it's worth, it was nice of you to play along for a while. Think I needed that. Just to get back on my feet. We were quite all-consuming, at one point." 

"We were," Liam says, "and, for what it's worth, thank you for letting me try it. Being someone's muse. I'm not usually the kind that evokes wild passion in someone. It was odd, but- lovely. At one point." 

Zayn nods. "I do love you." 

"I do love you too." 

They stand for a moment, just looking each other in the eye. 

Zayn breaks first, gaze flicking to the door. "One last round, for old times' sake?" 

"Thought you'd never ask." 

 

*

 

**HARRY**

Niall and Lucy huddle inside soon as they leave the taxi, giggling and laughing in their own little world. They hardly notice Harry slip out and past the garden path, continuing down the pavement. He doesn't know whether Louis' home or not. He could be, he texted something about coming back yesterday or today, Harry isn't sure, but he just can't go in. Can't quite bring himself to face Louis. There's a tiny bit of him that's scared that nothing will have changed. That they'll be starting over as though nothing happened, that Louis will shy way from his kisses or break up with him just to avoid getting caught.

There's a tiny bit of him that fears Louis being sober now, making promises today and then not keeping them tomorrow.

It's just- it's been a lot, lately. Louis wasn't wrong when he said Harry fucked his own life up, worrying about Louis fucking his up. He can't even remember the last time he did something like this; went on a walk all by himself, just because he wanted to. It seems ever since Tuscany, maybe even before, he's been so caught up in Louis he's forgotten himself. In some ways, that's all right, he thinks. He wants to be caught up in Louis because Louis' the best thing he knows.

But, it's draining, is all. If Louis won't even try to get help. If it's all got to be on Harry's shoulders.

At some point, lost in his own mind, probably with a deep frown etched in his forehead, he reaches the playground again. 

He walks across the pebbles, over to the creaky old swing-set, plops down on a swing and crumbles in on himself. And then he does something he hasn't allowed himself to do in a long while; he feels sorry for himself. 

He sits there, a grown man on a swing under the evening sky, empty playground and his bum soaked from the rain-wet seat, and feels so so sorry for himself. 

He doesn't cry, he thinks, or swear or talk to himself. Still, he doesn't hear the person walking across the pebbles and coming up to his side. Not until they plop down on the swing beside him and the entire swing-set creaks and whines. 

Harry lifts his face out of his hands, slowly. 

Louis sits sideways on his swing, legs spread around one of the chains, hands on his knees, smiling at Harry. It's the kind of smile that just says ' _I'm sorry_ ' and nothing else.

"Hi," Harry says, voice a little rusty from lack of usage, "hi," he says again, firmer.

"Hi."

"Did you follow me?"

"Sort of."

"Have you been drinking?"

Louis shakes his head, slowly. "No," he says, his smile widening with it, because they both know his word isn't worth much at the moment. 

He looks sober, though. Then again, he did a lot of other times when he wasn't. Harry's so tired of worrying. Wondering. "I, uhm-" 

"Harry, I've told my mum about- stuff." 

Oh. Harry nods slowly. "How'd she take it?" 

"She cried." 

Harry nods again. "Yeah." 

Louis smiles, his eyes welling up, suddenly. Harry shifts, wanting to come closer, wanting to pull him in and make it all better. Louis shifts too, backwards. Harry's face falls. 

"Do you not want me closer?" he asks, and they both know why. 

"Haven't been drinking," Louis says, calmly, "sorry, I just- you don't have to run to me whenever I get a little bit-" he wipes at his waterlines with the back of his sleeves and smiles, sniffly and red-nosed, "I'm a big boy, Haz. And- it was wrong of me to expect you not to worry just cause I told you not to. I know that's not possible, when you're close with someone, I would've worried about you like crazy had the roles been reversed. So, I- I put all of this on you and you _only_ cause you were the only one who knew. And then I got mad when you couldn't just let me- drink and fuck myself up and still have you." 

"Yeah," Harry says, and the frailness of his voice surprises himself as well as Louis. 

"Oh, darling, don't," Louis exclaims, disregarding everything he just said and tramping closer on the swing until he can take one of Harry's hands, "don't cry, please. It's gonna be all right. I'm gonna be all right." 

Harry takes his hand and then his whole arm, pulling on him and nuzzling into it. He misses the feel of Louis. Louis cups his face, eyes studying it for a moment. He traces his thumb over Harry's nose and Harry gives a soft wince. 

"Sorry about that," Louis says with a lop-sided little smile, "really wasn't aiming for your face, I swear." 

Harry grins a little, blinking away whatever dampness had accumulated in his eyes. "They gave me a flyer on relationship abuse and getting help," he says with a little chuckle, "cause they asked what'd happened at the emergency room and I just blurted ' _my boyfriend punched me_ '. They were trying to get me to see a psychiatrist and everything." 

"Bloody hell, now I feel like a fucking monster." 

Harry chuckles a little more, shaking his head. "I told'em you only did it cause I asked about your boozing. Apparently didn't help the situation." 

"Fuck, Harry." 

Harry presses a kiss to the inside of Louis' wrist, and then looks back at him, grin fading a little, "are you gonna get help? _Proper_ help. Cause- cause, believe me, I want to trust you and be there for you and help you, but I just don't think I can, properly, you know. I don't think I know how, properly." 

"No, I know," Louis sighs, sitting back a little, but wraps his hands round one of Harry's knees to keep from swinging too far back, "my mum's got in contact with some people. And I- they have college help and stuff. Anonymous and stuff. I hope you won't, like- tell anyone or-" 

"Never in a million years unless you wanted me to." 

Louis smiles. Pets his cheek. "I'm sorry I've been such a difficult brat. The beginnings of relationships should be the easy part. The fun part, shouldn't it? And I've just fucked it up." 

"Yeah," Harry grins, before quickly adding; "no, Lou, I don't give a fuck, okay? I just want you to feel better. We've got the rest of our lives to have fun." 

"Wow, _shit_ , easy now, you haven't even let me fuck you yet, one step at a time." 

Harry barks a laugh. 

They sit for a while, just smiling at each other, and the ground, and then each other again. 

"Can I kiss you?" Harry asks at some point. 

"Oh, ehm- I'm actually running a little late so-" 

"Shut the fuck up," Harry laughs, before he grabs Louis by the swing-chain, pulls him close and fits their mouths together. 

Louis doesn't smell or taste like alcohol that day. He doesn't the following day either, when Harry picks him up right after school, kisses him immediately and then walks him home. He does one day, late into the following week, and they both cry. It isn't a perfect ride and it's hard, whenever there's a party or something to be celebrated or one of the housemates open a beer after a long day. It's hard when Harry isn't sure where Louis is, isn't sure he can trust him on his word, when Harry ruins Louis' mood sometimes, by sniffing his mouth before they kiss and Louis gets sick of being treated like a ' _fucking alcoholic_ '. 

Slowly, though, he starts to find people who understand him, starts to find little things to do instead whenever he feels like a drink. He goes to his meetings and he tries, he really tries, not for Harry, but for himself.

And, even if Louis doesn't see it that way, if Louis thinks him fucking up sometimes means he's fucked everything up entirely, just getting to be with him, through the good and the great and the really fucking shitty, to Harry, that _is_  the fun part. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was short and odd and probably wont go back to the pov-thing again, but an interesting experiment :) 
> 
> hope you enjoyed


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